The Effects of College Counseling on High-Achieving, Low-Income Students

Abstract

This paper reports the results of a pilot study, using a randomized controlled trial to provide college counseling to high-achieving students from relatively poor families. We followed 107 high school seniors through the college admissions process in 2006-2007; we selected 52 of these students at random, offering them ten hours of individualized college advising with a nearby college counselor. The counseling had little or no effect on college application quality, but does seem to have influenced the choice of where the students applied to college. We estimate that students offered counseling were 7.9 percentage points more likely than students not offered counseling to enroll in colleges ranked by Barron's as "Most Competitive", though this effect was not statistically significant. More than one-third of the students who accepted the offer of counseling did not follow through on all of the advice they received. Going beyond the framework of the randomized experiment, our statistical analysis suggests that counseling would have had approximately twice as much effect if all students matched with counselors had followed the advice of the counselors.

The Determinants of Mismatch Between Students and Colleges

“…This conclusion, though perhaps surprising, represents the standard view in the academic literature; see, e.g. Hoxby and Avery (2012), Griffith and Rothstein (2010), Avery andTurner (2009), andRoderick et al (2008). It also justifies our framing of the choice as primarily one made by students in the informal model in Section II.…”

“…Consider first the demographic 4 Inspired by Avery (2010) we looked at whether the student's high school offered college counseling as well. Virtually every high school answered "yes" to this question.…”

“…Arcidiacono, Aucejo and Spenner (2012), Bowen and Bok (1998) and Sander and Taylor (2012). Another line of work considers undermatching, focusing specifically on application behavior, as in Avery (2010), Griffith andRothstein (2009), Howell (2011) and Pallais (2012), or the recruiting efforts of elite colleges, as in Hill and Winston (2010) and Hoxby and Avery (2012). Roderick et al (2008) and Bowen, Chingos and McPherson (2009) focus on the entire process, including college completion.…”

Is College a Worthwhile Investment?

“…Thus, it would also be useful to exploit some of the recent experimental studies that appear to affect college enrollment and persistence and that are perhaps more likely to pertain to community college students who might otherwise not attain any college experience. These include studies that randomize assistance or reminders for filling out the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) forms (Bettinger et al 2012, Castleman & Page 2015, providing financial aid (Harris & Goldrick-Rab 2012), or offering college counseling for disadvantaged high school students (Avery 2010, Chin et al 2015. By collecting data on study participants as they enter the labor market, one could possibly utilize the experimental variation in going to college as a first stage to estimate the causal effect of college on earnings.…”

The Effect of Access to College Assessments on Enrollment and Attainment

“…Several other studies have found that college attendance decisions are influenced by the quality of information available. For example, Cunha, Miller, and Weisburst (2009);Avery (2010) ;Carrell and Sacerdote (2012); and Hoxby and Turner (2013) generally find positive effects of initiatives that provide information about college to high school students through resource materials or counseling services. 9 The observed heterogeneity in response to taking the SAT by aptitude has a natural analogue in studies by Manski (1989), Altonji (1993), Arcidiacono (2004Arcidiacono ( , 2005, and Stinebrickner (2008, 2012), who find that students update their perceived college options after they matriculate and their ability is revealed.…”