University Rankings in Action? The Importance of Rankings and an Excellence Competition for University Choice of High-Ability Students

Abstract

Die Dis cus si on Pape rs die nen einer mög lichst schnel len Ver brei tung von neue ren For schungs arbei ten des ZEW. Die Bei trä ge lie gen in allei ni ger Ver ant wor tung der Auto ren und stel len nicht not wen di ger wei se die Mei nung des ZEW dar.Dis cus si on Papers are inten ded to make results of ZEW research prompt ly avai la ble to other eco no mists in order to encou ra ge dis cus si on and sug gesti ons for revi si ons. The aut hors are sole ly respon si ble for the con tents which do not neces sa ri ly repre sent the opi ni on of the ZEW.Download this ZEW Discussion Paper from our ftp server:http://ftp.zew.de/pub/zew-docs/dp/dp11061.pdf Non-Technical SummaryEvery year, secondary school graduates have to choose a university. This is a crucial decision for their future trajectories made under imperfect information. Therefore, quality indicators like university rankings and an excellence competition may provide valuable information for choosing a university.This paper analyzes whether prospective students in fact use quality indicators as a source of information within the application process and whether the influence of the indicators differs with respect to various quality dimensions -e.g. research quality, mentoring, faculty infrastructure, student assessment and excellence status. Therefore, I estimate the effect of different quality indicators from a German university ranking and an excellence initiative run by the German government on the university application decision of high-ability students. As identification relies on the variation in ranking indicators and excellence status over time, I can disentangle the effect of the additional information provided by the rankings from the common knowledge regarding university quality.This paper contributes to the existing literature by studying the influence of ranking indicators with respect to various quality dimensions, while at the same time controlling for overall university attractiveness. I use a very comprehensive, administrative data set provided by the German central agency ('ZVS') administering the application process for medical schools. The data set contains individual information on all applicants at German medical schools for the years 2002-2008.The evaluation of the excellence initiative shows that in the course of the competition the share of applicants increased on average by 19 % at the winning universities, which are today known as "excellence universities". The results regarding the different ranking indicators suggest that the non-research dimensions "student-professor ratio", the number of "clinic beds", and the "students' satisfaction" rather than the research-related indicators influence university choice of high-ability students. This may seem counterintuitive, but is plausible as research quality seems to be common knowledge within the group of high-ability students. In this case, the research related ranking indicators do not provide any additional information. Hence, university rankings are in action if they add new infor...

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