The first chapter of the dissertation explores the impact of the United State's Supreme
Court's 2003 decisions in Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger on applications
and admissions at an elite public university. The decisions proscribed the use of point
systems; however, they permitted the use of race in a holistic review. I and that the size
of the applicant pool declined and that the academic quality of applicants and admits
increased. I find no evidence that the conditional probability of admissions declined for
black applicants or that the advantage that white applicants with relatively low selection
index scores held over Asian applicants with similar scores declined.
The second chapter examines the impacts of both Texas's Top Ten Percent Rule (TTTPR)
and targeted recruitment programs on the score report sending behavior of SAT test-takers
in Texas. Texas's Top Ten Percent Rule guarantees admission to any public college in Texas
to high school graduates who finish in the top decile. Using SAT data and Texas High
School data, I examine the score report sending behavior of SAT takers by self-reported
class rank. I find that TTTPR affects score report sending behavior and that the effects
vary with self-reported rank. I find that the targeted financial aid program instituted by
the University of Texas was successful in attracting score reports, a proxy for applications,
from targeted high schools; the program instituted by Texas A&M-College Station was not
as successful.
The third chapter examines the effects of the implementation of Texas's Top Ten Percent
Rule on the rate at which graduates from Texas's high school attempt an admissions
examination, a proxy for applying to a more selective college. Using high school level
data from the Academic Excellence Indicator System, I find a decrease in the percentage
of graduates who attempt an admissions examination and that the decrease is larger at
schools that had student bodies with socioeconomically disadvantaged students or high
schools with student bodies that had a high percentage of Hispanic Students.Ph.D.EconomicsUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/57618/2/rodneya_1.pd
