Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/55225 
Year of Publication: 
2012
Series/Report no.: 
WZB Discussion Paper No. SP II 2012-201
Publisher: 
Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB), Berlin
Abstract: 
Quotas for special groups of students often apply in school or university admission procedures. This paper studies the performance of two mechanisms to implement such quotas in a lab experiment. The first mechanism is a simplified version of the mechanism currently employed by the German central clearinghouse for university admissions, which first allocates seats in the quota for top-grade students before allocating all other seats among remaining applicants. The second is a modified version of the student-proposing deferred acceptance (SDA) algorithm, which simultaneously allocates seats in all quotas. Our main result is that the current procedure, designed to give top-grade students an advantage, actually harms them, as students often fail to grasp the strategic issues involved. The modified SDA algorithm significantly improves the matching for top-grade students and could thus be a valuable tool for redesigning university admissions in Germany.
Subjects: 
college admissions
experiment
quotas
matching
Gale-Shapley mechanism
Boston mechanism
JEL: 
C78
C92
D78
I20
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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