Varying Impacts of Letters of Recommendation on College Admissions

Autor/inn/en	Ben-Michael, Eli; Feller, Avi; Rothstein, Jesse
Titel	Varying Impacts of Letters of Recommendation on College Admissions
Quelle	(2023), (23 Seiten)Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	Weitere Informationen
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; Monographie
Schlagwörter	Letters (Correspondence); Advocacy; College Applicants; College Admission; Student Characteristics; Disadvantaged Youth; Socioeconomic Status; Racial Differences; Ethnicity; Minority Group Students; Low Achievement; First Generation College Students; Low Income Students; Grade Point Average; Scores; College Entrance Examinations; California (Berkeley); SAT (College Admission Test); ACT Assessment + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Brief; Sozialanwaltschaft; College applications; Studienbewerber; Hochschulzugang; Hochschulzulassung; Zulassung; Benachteiligter Jugendlicher; Socio-economic status; Sozioökonomischer Status; Rassenunterschied; Ethnizität; Unterdurchschnittliche Leistung; Aufnahmeprüfung; Assessment; Eignungsprüfung; Eignungstest
Abstract	In a pilot program during the 2016-17 admissions cycle, the University of California, Berkeley invited many applicants for freshman admission to submit letters of recommendation. This proved controversial within the university, with concerns that this change would further disadvantage applicants from disadvantaged groups. To inform this debate, we use this pilot as the basis for an observational study of the impact of submitting letters of recommendation on subsequent admission, with the goal of estimating how impacts vary across pre-defined subgroups. Understanding this variation is challenging in an observational setting because estimated impacts reflect both actual treatment effect variation and differences in covariate balance across groups. To address this, we develop balancing weights that directly optimize for "local balance" within subgroups while maintaining global covariate balance between treated and control units. Applying this approach to the UC Berkeley pilot study yields excellent local and global balance, unlike more traditional weighting methods, which fail to balance covariates within subgroups. We find that the impact of letters of recommendation increases with applicant strength. However, we find little average difference for applicants from disadvantaged groups, although this result is more mixed. In the end, we conclude that soliciting letters of recommendation from a broader pool of applicants would not meaningfully change the composition of admitted undergraduates. [This is the online version of an article published in "Annals of Applied Statistics."] (As Provided).
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01