Book/Printed Material A revealed preference ranking of U.S. colleges and universities
About this Item
Title
- A revealed preference ranking of U.S. colleges and universities
Summary
- "We show how to construct a ranking of U.S. undergraduate programs based on students' revealed preferences. We construct examples of national and regional rankings, using hand-collected data on 3,240 high- achieving students. Our statistical model extends models used for ranking players in tournaments, such as chess or tennis. When a student makes his matriculation decision among colleges that have admitted him, he chooses which college "wins" in head-to-head competition. The model exploits the information contained in thousands of these wins and losses. Our method produces a ranking that would be difficult for a college to manipulate. In contrast, it is easy to manipulate the matriculation rate and the admission rate, which are the common measures of preference that receive substantial weight in highly publicized college rating systems. If our ranking were used in place of these measures, the pressure on colleges to practice strategic admissions would be relieved"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Names
- Avery, Christopher (Christopher N.)
- National Bureau of Economic Research
Created / Published
- Cambridge, MA : National Bureau of Economic Research, c2004.
Headings
- - College choice--United States
- - Universities and colleges--Ratings and rankings--United States
Notes
- - Title from PDF file as viewed on 1/10/2005.
- - Includes bibliographical references.
- - Also available in print.
- - Mode of access: World Wide Web.
- - System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Call Number/Physical Location
- HB1
Digital Id
- https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gdc/gdcebookspublic.2005615383
- http://papers.nber.org/papers/W10803 External
Library of Congress Control Number
- 2005615383
Access Advisory
- Unrestricted online access
Online Format
- image