title: Racial and Ethnic Differences in College Application Behavior
Creators: name: Black, Sandra E.
name: Cortes, Kalena E.
name: Arnold Lincove, Jane
Publisher: name: The University of Texas at Austin
Year: 2019
Subjects: subject: policy brief
subject: college

description: An important but ignored factor in a college access is the student’s application decisions. We examine whether college application behavior influences racial gaps in college access, using two recent graduation cohorts from Texas. We found that racial and ethnic gaps in application rates, particularly for Hispanic students, are not explained by differential levels of college readiness, high school quality, or information regarding college admission processes. When applying to college, minorities are influenced by more than just matching their academic ability to the institution and prefer institutions with a large proportion of same race students and campuses where same race students from their high school have been successful in the past. Our results suggest that universities cannot rely on students to diversify campuses without intentional policy efforts to attract and retain minority students. These can include admissions policies that guarantee acceptance for high-performing students regardless of high school quality, such as Texas’ Top 10% Rule. Substantial disparities in college enrollment rates exist across racial and socioeconomic groups in the United States. Nationally, only 62 percent of black and 60 percent of Hispanic high school graduates enrolled in college the fall semester after high school graduation, compared to 71 percent of white graduates (National Center for Education Statistics 2010a, 2010b). A key goal of education policy is to help remediate this inequity by providing equal opportunity and access to all students. However, to develop better policy, one needs to understand the underlying causes of these disparities. There are many possible explanations for gaps in college access. Selective admissions processes can limit college access among minorities if high school quality and high school outcomes are unequally distributed by race and ethnicity. Even before a student can enter an admissions process, she must apply – a process that may be particularly daunting for a potential first-generation college student. In this study, we first investigate racial and ethnic differences in the initial step in college enrollment – the application decision – using two full cohorts of recent Texas high school graduates. We do so in order to assess the differential roles of student demographics, high school quality, and student preparedness in the college application decision. We also allow for effects of race to differ based on student and high school characteristics. Second, we examine the decision of where to apply conditional on applying. When deciding where to apply, students can incorporate a number of different elements into this decision, including their level of preparedness, the probability of acceptance, and campus characteristics. We focus on understanding the importance of student-campus fit by estimating the influence of academic match, campus demographics, and high school feeder patterns on behavior regarding where students apply to college.