Volume 38, Number 1 (Winter) 2003
Vigdor, Jacob L., and Charles T. Clotfelter. 2003. "Retaking the SAT." Journal of Human Resources 38(1): 33.
Using data on applicants to three selective universities, we analyze a college applicant's decision to retake the SAT. We model this decision as an optimal search problem, and use the model to assess the impact of college admissions policies on retaking behavior. The most common test score ranking policy, which utilizes only the highest of all submitted scores, provides large incentives to retake the test. This places certain applicants at a disadvantage: those with high test-taking costs, those attaching low values to college admission, and those with "pessimistic" prior beliefs regarding their own ability.
Jacob L Vigdor is an assistant professor of public policy studies and economics at Duke University. Box 90245. Durham NC 27708. e-mail: jvigdor@pps.duke.edu . Charles T. Clotfelter is Z Smith Reynolds Professor of public policy studies, economics, and law at Duke University and National Bureau of Economic Research, Box 90245, Durham, NC 27708, email: cltfltr@pps.duke.edu . The authors are grateful to Christopher Avery, Charles Brown, Philip Cook, Helen Ladd, three anonymous referees, and seminar participants at Duke, Vanderbilt, the APPAM 2001 fall conference, the 2002 AEA meetings, Chicago GSB, and the NBER higher education working group for helpful comments, to Gary Barnes for assistance in obtaining the data, and to Robert Malme and Margaret Lieberman for research assistance.
© 2003 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
US ISSN 0022-166X