rejecting overqualified applicants?

[JW_Muller]

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Of course, nobody has yet to demonstrate that these types of rejections are being handed out at Cornell, so your point is strictly academic.

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<p>Correct you are. [Scattergrams[/url</a>] at CollegeData do not show any suspicious ‘overqualified’ rejections.</p>

<p>The issue of rejecting ‘overqualifed’ applicants is discussed, and data presented attesting to the practice, in [url=<a href=“http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=601105#PaperDownload”>http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=601105#PaperDownload&lt;/a&gt;] A Revealed Preference Ranking of U.S. Colleges and Universities](<a href=“https://www.collegedata.com/cs/admissions/admissions_tracker_result.jhtml?schoolId=787&classYear=2013]Scattergrams[/url”>https://www.collegedata.com/cs/admissions/admissions_tracker_result.jhtml?schoolId=787&classYear=2013). The paper claims to see Princeton practicing strategic admissions, more so than Harvard, Yale or MIT.</p>

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Golden, in “Glass Floor: How Colleges Reject The Top Applicants–And Boost Their Status –Accepting Only the Students Likely to Enroll Makes A School Look Selective–‘They Were Simply Too Good’” (2001), provides numerous examples of colleges’ practicing strategic admissions. We need not rely on anecdotes, however, we can look for evidence in our data.</p>

<p>If a college is not practicing strategic admissions, then the probability that a student is admitted ought to rise monotonically in his or her merit. In contrast, a college that is strategic will have non-monotonic admissions probabilities. A student’s probability of admission will first rise in his or her merit and then fall as his or her merit moves into the range in which the strategic college faces stiff competition. In other words,** the college will avoid admitting students in the range in which it is likely to lose in a matriculation tournament.** Finally, if the
student’s merit is high enough, a strategic college will probably admit the student even if the competition will be stiff. This is because the prospective gains from enrolling a “star” will more than make up for the prospective losses from a higher admissions rate and lower matriculation rate.

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