College applications and the effect of affirmative action

Abstract

This paper evaluates the behavioral response of college-bound high school seniors to changes in college affirmative action admissions policies during the late 1990s. After the elimination of affirmative action in California and Texas, the gap between the numbers of SAT score reports sent by non-minority and minority students to in-state, public colleges significantly widened. To explain the number of score reports sent to various types of institutions, a count model is estimated as a system of seemingly unrelated regressions using semiparametric generalized least squares. The effect of changes in state policy on the number of reports of minority and non-minority students are simulated and compared to the actual responses. The simulation predicts a large decrease in the number of reports sent by minority students and a large increase in non-minority score reports sent to top-tier public colleges as a result of changes in the students' probabilities of acceptance.