Panel: The Impact of Information on the Behavior of Colleges and College Students
(Education)

Friday, November 7, 2014: 1:30 PM-3:00 PM
Enchantment II (Convention Center)

*Names in bold indicate Presenter

Panel Organizers:  Lesley Turner, University of Maryland
Panel Chairs:  Alexandra Resch, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.
Discussants:  Sarena Goodman, Federal Reserve Board of Governors


Strategic Disclosure: The Case of Business School Rankings
Michael Luca, Harvard University and Jonathan Smith, The College Board



Inference By College Admissions Departments
Stacy Dickert-Conlin and Michael Conlin, Michigan State University


Simple forms of private and public information may influence the behavior of colleges and their students. In the college admissions process, students and college hold substantive private information and make decisions about what information to disclose. For instance, prospective students may selectively send test scores to colleges in order to present their best academic characteristics. Recently, some colleges made optional submissions of standardized test scores. However, little is known about how institutions respond to receive partial information on students. Colin and Dickert-Conlin examine how two liberal arts colleges infer in the admissions process in the absence of some test scores. In terms of public information, there are numerous media outlets the provide guide book style information and rankings, designed to assist students in selecting a college. Public information on ranking is extensive, where a simple Google searches on “college rankings” yields 375 million results. With so much information available on rankings, college may selectively filter this information about being ranked as “best” or “top” institution. Luca and Smith take up this line of inquiry and investigate how business schools chose to disclose ranking information. Even more recently, the Department of Education has released several tools intended to help students and their families make informed decisions about college programs, while also putting pressure on institutions to hold down costs. The College Affordability and Transparency Center (CATC) list the set of institutions with the highest and fastest growing prices on an annual basis. Media accounts refer to the CATC high priced college lists as the “hall of shame” or “shame lists”. Such negative attention may induce institutional responses to appearing on the CATC list, which may yield productive responses or potential gaming of numbers to appear better without making real/meaningful changes. Burczek Dreier and Turner assess how institutions respond to being ranked as high priced institution on the CATC lists and whether this information affects students’ college application and enrollment decisions.
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