Diversifying Society’s Leaders? The Determinants and Causal Effects of Admission to Highly Selective Private Colleges
Quarterly Journal of Economics · 2025 · Raj Chetty、David Deming、John N. Friedman
中文摘要
我们使用多所大学的匿名录取数据，并将其与所得税记录及SAT和ACT考试成绩相链接，研究就读“常春藤+”大学（常春藤盟校、斯坦福大学、麻省理工学院、杜克大学和芝加哥大学）的决定因素与因果效应。在SAT/ACT成绩相当的情况下，收入位居前1%家庭的子女就读“常春藤+”大学的可能性是中产阶级家庭子女的两倍以上。这一差距的三分之二源于考试成绩相当时高收入家庭学生具有更高的录取率，其余三分之一则源于申请率和入学率的差异。相比之下，高收入家庭子女在旗舰公立大学的录取中并无优势。“常春藤+”大学录取中高收入家庭学生的优势由三个因素驱动：（一）对校友子女的偏好；（二）对非学术资历的重视；（三）体育特长生招募。我们采用一种新的研究设计，分离候补名单申请者录取决定中的特异性变异，结果表明，与就读一般的旗舰公立大学相比，就读“常春藤+”大学使学生进入收入分布前1%的概率提高50%，使其就读精英研究生院的概率接近翻倍，并使其就职于知名企业的概率接近三倍。为高收入家庭子女带来录取优势的三个因素，与大学毕业后的结果不相关或呈负相关，而SAT/ACT成绩等学术资历则对大学毕业后的成功具有很强的预测力。
Abstract
Abstract We use anonymized admissions data from several colleges linked to income tax records and SAT and ACT test scores to study the determinants and causal effects of attending Ivy-Plus colleges (Ivy League, Stanford, MIT, Duke, and Chicago). Children from families in the top 1% are more than twice as likely to attend an Ivy-Plus college as those from middle-class families with comparable SAT/ACT scores. Two-thirds of this gap is due to higher admission rates for students with comparable test scores from high-income families; the remaining third is due to differences in rates of application and matriculation. In contrast, children from high-income families have no admissions advantage at flagship public colleges. The high-income admissions advantage at Ivy-Plus colleges is driven by three factors: (i) preferences for children of alumni, (ii) weight placed on nonacademic credentials, and (iii) athletic recruitment. Using a new research design that isolates idiosyncratic variation in admissions decisions for waitlisted applicants, we show that attending an Ivy-Plus college instead of the average flagship public college increases students’ chances of reaching the top 1% of the earnings distribution by 50%, nearly doubles their chances of attending an elite graduate school, and almost triples their chances of working at a prestigious firm. The three factors that give children from high-income families an admissions advantage are uncorrelated or negatively correlated with postcollege outcomes, whereas academic credentials such as SAT/ACT scores are highly predictive of postcollege success.