Centralized University Admissions with Uncertainty

Abstract

I study a model of centralized university admissions, where a continuum of students are matched to three universities based on students' submitted preferences and their scores from a standardized exam. The interaction of timing to submit preferences and mechanisms induces students to adopt different application strategies. I show that under the widely used Boston mechanism, at aggregate level, submitting preference prior to the publication of scores results in less sorting of students according to scores relative to the submission after the publication of scores, but universities can be worse off according to the scores of admitted students. Further, submission prior to the publication of scores decreases total students welfare, but the welfare for students admitted to more popular university increases, and the welfare for students admitted to less popular university decreases.