How do Students Respond to Partial Information on Graduation Chances? Evidence from University Admissions in France

Gabrielle FACK (Dauphine)

Abstract:

This paper tests if and how students react to partial information provision in France’s centralized university admissions. We exploit the Orientation Active policy, which provides applicants to some non-selective programs with a negative, positive, or mixed assessment of their program-specific graduation chance, based on the students’ past academic performance and the programs’ cutoffs. We use these cutoffs to develop a regression discontinuity design to examine testable predictions derived from a theoretical model. Our results reject the hypothesis that students have full information about their graduation chances at all programs, as they change their application behavior and/or enrollment decision upon receiving a positive or negative assessment. These behavioral responses, however, do not lead to improved student outcomes in the first two years of higher education. These results uncover the potential pitfalls of partial information provision that need to be taken into account in the design of interventions in education settings.

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