Teachable Moments
Essentializing Merit: Disability and Exclusion in Elite Private School Admissions
Estela Diaz & Lauren Rivera
American Sociological Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Historically, elite schools have selected students in ways that reproduce advantages for dominant groups and exclude groups deemed undesirable. The specific outgroup in question has changed over time, but the underlying logic used to exclude these groups is often related to disability. Yet, disability as a social category has received minimal attention in discussions of elite reproduction. In this article, we draw on qualitative data collected from elite independent pre-K–12 schools to show that disability is indeed a salient basis of selection into elite educational environments, one that begins at the earliest moments of educational sorting: admission to elite early childhood programs. Through interviews with admissions personnel, we show that elite independent schools explicitly structure their admissions processes to identify -- and exclude -- children who are perceived as having or being at risk of developing any type of disability, regardless of impairment type or support needs. We argue that admissions practices at elite independent schools (1) serve as a form of social closure intended to restrict enrollment to young children perceived as able-bodied and neurotypical, and (2) represent a case of essentializing merit, in which elite gatekeepers construct merit as an intrinsic, rather than achieved, property of individuals.
US College Students’ Well-Being
David Blanchflower & Bruce Sacerdote
NBER Working Paper, May 2025
Abstract:
We study the determinants of poor mental health among students at an elite private institution. Survey measures of well-being have declined significantly over the last decade for both high school students and those of college age. This is an international phenomenon that appears to have started in the US around 2013 and that was not caused by but was exacerbated by COVID and the associated lockdowns. We focus on elite and non-elite institutions and examine Dartmouth as a special case. Dartmouth ranks well compared to other institutions. However, around a quarter of Dartmouth students (26%) report they suffer from moderate to severe depression and 22% that they suffer from moderate, to severe, anxiety and 10% say they contemplated suicide. Student’s wellbeing appears to be impacted negatively by stress over finances. We find broad patterns in the data, that ill-being is higher among females, those who engage in little exercise, have low GPAs, are not athletes nor in academic clubs nor religious organizations, reside in fraternity housing or are on financial aid.
Academic Writing Skills in College Admissions Essays: Exploring Their Implications for Admissions Decisions and First-Semester Grade Point Average
Sugene Cho-Baker et al.
Educational Researcher, forthcoming
Abstract:
Admissions essays submitted by applicants to undergraduate institutions are typically evaluated by admissions professionals to gain a better understanding of an applicant’s likely fit for the institution. These essays are becoming increasingly important because many colleges are likely to strengthen the role that non-test-based application materials play in the admission decision-making process. The current study examines an index of academic writing skills exhibited in admissions essays and its implications for admissions decisions and post-enrollment academic outcomes across students from different demographic and socioeconomic backgrounds. We found that underrepresented minority (URM) and low-socioeconomic status applicants tended to submit essays that showed lower academic writing skills than their counterparts. URM and first-generation applicants who submitted essays with higher academic writing skills were more likely to get accepted, but they were not likely to receive higher first-semester grade point averages, on average, compared to non-URM and non-first-generation applicants who submitted essays that displayed high academic writing skills.
Who Benefits from College Grant Aid and Why? Evidence from Texas
Michael Galperin
University of Chicago Working Paper, December 2024
Abstract:
I use rich administrative data and several quasi-experiments in Texas to study which students benefit most from college grant aid and why. For "extensive-margin" students, grant aid causes enrollment in college, and therefore has potentially large benefits relative to these students' no-college counterfactual. In contrast, "intensive-margin" students would attend college even in the absence of additional aid, but nevertheless may benefit from additional financial support. The goal of this paper is to compare the costs and benefits of aid targeted at different groups of students and college sectors, and to understand the contributions of the intensive and extensive margins in shaping aid's overall effects. To do so, I leverage discontinuities in grant award rules which create variation in aid targeting three distinct populations: middle-income applicants to four-year colleges, low-income applicants to four-year colleges, and low-income applicants to community colleges. While these discontinuities provide exogenous variation in grant awards, I still encounter a common missing-data problem: my data contains all enrolled students, not all applicants, meaning that discontinuities in outcomes at the eligibility cutoff may conflate the causal effects of grants with compositional changes in enrolled students. I develop a bounding approach to overcome sample selection bias stemming from this missing-data problem. I find that grant aid targeted at low-income applicants to four-year colleges has large impacts on academic outcomes and students' future earnings. In sharp contrast, there is little overall effect of additional aid on academic outcomes and future earnings among middle-income applicants to four-year colleges and low-income applicants to community colleges. Across all three treatment margins, extensive-margin effects do not play a large positive role in determining the overall effects of grant aid.
Informal social interactions, academic achievement and behavior: Evidence from peers on the school bus
Matthew Lenard & Mikko Silliman
Economic Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
We study the effects of informal social interactions on academic achievement and behavior using idiosyncratic variation in peer groups stemming from changes in bus routes across elementary, middle, and high school. Our results suggest that student interactions outside the classroom -- especially in adolescence -- may be an important factor in the education production function for both academic and, particularly, behavioral skills. The effects of interactions on the bus are also related to neighborhood measures -- suggesting that one way that interactions on the bus may matter is by amplifying interactions in the neighborhood.
The COVID-19 Pandemic’s Disruptions to Preschool Children’s Cognitive, Social-Emotional, and Executive Functioning Skills
Vi-Nhuan Le et al.
AERA Open, April 2025
Abstract:
Using a longitudinal design that analyzed data captured before and after pandemic-related preschool closures, we compared the kindergarten readiness of children whose preschool experiences were interrupted by the pandemic with the kindergarten readiness of prepandemic children whose preschool experiences were more typical. Pandemic-related disadvantages were observed for early math, social-emotional, and executive functioning, with the pandemic-affected cohort showing disadvantages of between 11 and 18 percentage points. Developmental disadvantages were observed across all income levels, and there was suggestive evidence that the loss of preschool affected the social-emotional and executive functioning skills of children from lower- and higher-income groups differently, although these differences were not always statistically significant. Policy implications are discussed.
Student-Level Attendance Patterns Across Three Post-Pandemic Years
Tom Swiderski, Sarah Crittenden Fuller & Kevin Bastian
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine student attendance patterns in North Carolina across three post-pandemic years (2021–22 to 2023–24) compared to three pre-pandemic years (2016–17 to 2018–19). We find that the percentage of students who were chronically absent at least once over the 3-year period increased from 17% pre-pandemic to 38% post-pandemic, while the percentage who were chronically absent in all 3 years quadrupled from 2.4% to 9.6%. Persistent chronic absence rates are higher for Black and Hispanic than for White students and for students in high-poverty schools. Results show that while chronic absenteeism has been widespread post-pandemic, some students are experiencing especially deep and persistent levels of absenteeism. These students may face deeper underlying challenges to attendance and require more intensive intervention to recover.
How a Preschool Intervention Affected High School Outcomes: Longitudinal Pathways in a Randomized-Controlled Trial
Karen Bierman et al.
Child Development, May/June 2025, Pages 1236-1249
Abstract:
This study examined the impact of the Head Start Research-based, Developmentally Informed (REDI) preschool intervention on high school outcomes and explored longitudinal mediation. 356 children (58% White, 25% Black, 17% Latinx; 54% female, 46% male; Mage = 4.49 years) were recruited from Head Start classrooms which were randomized to intervention (N = 192) or “usual practice” (N = 164). REDI effects emerged on high school emotional symptoms (teacher ratings, d = 0.41) and behavior problems (composite of teacher, parent, youth ratings, d = 0.27) with the latter benefits mediated by earlier intervention boosts to social–emotional learning, social adjustment, and parent involvement. REDI had no direct impact on GPA or on-time graduation but promoted these outcomes indirectly mediated by earlier intervention effects.
A Quest for Knowledge
Christoph Carnehl & Johannes Schneider
Econometrica, March 2025, Pages 623-659
Abstract:
Is more novel research always desirable? We develop a model in which knowledge shapes society’s policies and guides the search for discoveries. Researchers select a question and how intensely to study it. The novelty of a question determines both the value and difficulty of discovering its answer. We show that the benefits of discoveries are nonmonotone in novelty. Knowledge expands endogenously step-by-step over time. Through a dynamic externality, moonshots -- research on questions more novel than what is myopically optimal -- can improve the evolution of knowledge. Moonshots induce research cycles in which subsequent researchers connect the moonshot to previous knowledge.
Is There a Vantage Advantage? Evidence from A Large-Scale Natural Experiment
Yesim Orhun et al.
University of Michigan Working Paper, April 2025
Abstract:
We investigate the causal impact of seating location on academic achievement, by leveraging a unique natural experiment that changed seating assignment in core MBA classes at a large midwestern university from endogenous choice by students to exogenous assignment by administrative staff. We first document substantial correlations between seating choice and grades during the period in which students chose where they sat (Fall 2009 to Winter 2014) and show that self-selection drives a large portion of these findings. Using data from the exogenous seating assignment period (Fall 2014 to Winter 2019), we then provide evidence of a modest positive causal impact of sitting in the front row on academic achievement. This causal effect is mainly observed in more quantitative classes, is likely driven by improved learning, and does not vary by student gender.