Preference Discovery in University Admissions: The Case for Dynamic Multioffer Mechanisms

Grenet, Julien; He, Yinghua; Kübler, Dorothea

doi:10.1086/718983

Cited by 23 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…These search activities may not be very time‐consuming, such that giving students enough time to search through a sequential mechanism is feasible. For example, there is evidence from Germany that students search for information during the admissions procedure (Grenet, He, and Kübler (2023)). In university admissions in France, students have between 2 to 5 days after receiving an offer to search for information and compare offers.…”

Section: Discussion: Practicalities Of Sequential Mechanismsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent empirical work on school choice (Narita (2018)) and university admissions (Grenet, He, and Kübler (2023)) provides indirect evidence of students searching and learning about their preferences during the application process. Narita (2018) studies reapplication behavior for high schools in New York City, and documents that a considerable proportion of students who receive their first choice decide to reapply.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such changes in demand create a welfare loss if they cannot be accommodated by the market. Similarly, Grenet, He, and Kübler (2023) document that university programs whose offers are received earlier are more likely to be ranked higher than programs whose offers arrive later. This can be explained by the students' costly search regarding the programs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Costly information acquisition in centralized matching markets

Hakimov,

Kübler,

Pan

2023

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When applying to a university, students and their parents devote considerable time acquiring information about university programs in order to form preferences. We explore ways to reduce wasteful information acquisition, that is, to help students avoid acquiring information about out‐of‐reach schools or universities, using a market design approach. Focusing on markets where students are ranked by universities based on exam scores, we find that, both theoretically and experimentally, a sequential serial dictatorship mechanism leads to higher student welfare than a direct serial dictatorship mechanism. This is because the sequential mechanism informs students about which universities are willing to admit them, thereby directing their search. Our experiments also show that the sequential mechanism has behavioral advantages because subjects deviate from the optimal search strategy less frequently than under the direct mechanism. Furthermore, providing historical cutoff scores under the direct mechanism can increase student welfare, especially when the information costs are high, although the observed effect is weaker than that of a sequential mechanism.

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Section: Discussion: Practicalities Of Sequential Mechanismsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Costly information acquisition in centralized matching markets

Hakimov,

Kübler,

Pan

2023

Self Cite

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“…Turkey uses the student-proposing DA mechanism but with a limited number of choices (Arslan et al, 2022). The college-proposing DA mechanism with limited choices is used in Germany (Grenet et al, 2022), Ireland (L. Chen, 2012), and Sweden. This paper focuses on the Boston mechanism, as it is easier to model the game induced by the Boston mechanism.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Timing of preference submissions under the Boston mechanism

Chen

2023

J Public Economic Theory

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This paper considers a model of centralized college admission under the Boston mechanism where students may have uncertainty about their priorities. Students have homogeneous ordinal preferences over colleges, but their preference intensities vary, and the exam scores determine their priorities. In equilibrium, student application strategies take a cutoff form. The strategies depend on their exam scores under post‐score submissions, on preference intensities under pre‐exam submissions, and on both preference intensities and signals about their exam scores under pre‐score submissions. Given these equilibrium strategies, students are better off under pre‐exam and pre‐score submissions than post‐score submissions. When students with the same preference intensities and exam scores receive signals of different qualities, those with bad signals could be hurt by those with good signals.

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“…They find that sophisticated students are assigned to higher performing schools. Grenet, He, and Kübler (2022) study a multi-offer dynamic mechanism in the German university admission systems and find that the combination of a sequential mechanism and a direct mechanism allows students to better discover their preferences. Luflade (2018) finds that in the Tunisian university admissions, offering information about vacancies to students under DA with restricted number of choices could yield similar outcome as DA without restriction.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Time-constrained Dynamic Mechanisms for College Admissions

Chen¹,

Pereyra²,

Zhu³

2022

Preprint

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Recent literature shows that dynamic matching mechanisms may outperform the standard mechanisms to deliver desirable results. We highlight an under-explored design dimension, the time constraints that students face under such a dynamic mechanism. First, we theoretically explore the effect of time constraints and show that the outcome can be worse than the outcome produced by the student-proposing deferred acceptance mechanism. Second, we present evidence from the Inner Mongolian university admissions that time constraints can prevent dynamic mechanisms from achieving stable outcomes, creating losers and winners among students.

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Preference Discovery in University Admissions: The Case for Dynamic Multioffer Mechanisms

Cited by 23 publications

References 36 publications

Costly information acquisition in centralized matching markets

Costly information acquisition in centralized matching markets

Timing of preference submissions under the Boston mechanism

Time-constrained Dynamic Mechanisms for College Admissions

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