Table 4.
Counterfactual Rate of College Acceptance, Conditional on Applying (controlling for student ability and region)
| Percentage who applied to a 4-year institution |
Percentage who applied to a private selective 4-year institution |
Percentage who applied to a public selective 4-year institution |
||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cohort | 1972 | 1982 | 1992 | 2004 | 1972 | 1982 | 1992 | 2004 | 1972 | 1982 | 1992 | 2004 |
| U.S. average | 94.2 | 97.6 | 90.7 | 85.9 | 82.5 | 78.5 | 71.3 | 63.9 | 88.4 | 87.9 | 84.9 | 78.9 |
| Test quintile | ||||||||||||
| 1st | 86.4 | 95.9 | 69.4 | 49.7 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 2nd | 88.9 | 96.6 | 80.9 | 68.2 | — | — | — | — | 71.2 | 71.3 | 68.5 | 50.8 |
| 3rd | 91.3 | 97.7 | 89.4 | 83.2 | 76.1 | 69.2 | 59.6 | 39.7 | 81.7 | 85.6 | 78.1 | 73.1 |
| 4th | 93.9 | 98.3 | 93.2 | 89.5 | 73.2 | 87.9 | 67.6 | 59.8 | 88.2 | 86.3 | 78.8 | 73.3 |
| 5th | 97.9 | 97.6 | 94.8 | 94.0 | 86.1 | 78.9 | 74.7 | 71.5 | 92.0 | 91.7 | 92.6 | 87.6 |
| Region | ||||||||||||
| New England |
94.7 | 97.6 | 91.8 | 87.8 | 83.0 | 78.8 | 72.6 | 65.4 | 88.9 | 87.5 | 85.6 | 80.0 |
| Middle Atlantic |
94.8 | 97.7 | 91.7 | 87.7 | 82.3 | 78.6 | 70.7 | 64.1 | 88.7 | 88.9 | 85.9 | 80.2 |
| South | 93.1 | 97.4 | 88.7 | 82.2 | 80.9 | 76.9 | 69.2 | 59.2 | 87.6 | 87.3 | 83.8 | 77.6 |
| Midwest | 94.1 | 97.5 | 90.8 | 86.2 | 84.7 | 80.3 | 73.2 | 69.2 | 88.0 | 87.6 | 84.4 | 78.1 |
| Southwest | 93.4 | 97.5 | 89.1 | 83.2 | 81.2 | 76.3 | 68.4 | 59.7 | 89.9 | 88.5 | 84.5 | 79.3 |
| West | 94.6 | 97.6 | 91.2 | 86.8 | 83.1 | 79.3 | 73.2 | 63.7 | 89.1 | 88.1 | 85.6 | 79.8 |
Source: National Center for Education Statistics, various longitudinal surveys described in the text.
Notes: We construct a counterfactual acceptance rate that controls for the changes in applicants by ability and region. These acceptance rates shown are fitted probabilities from logistic regressions that use the 1972 high school graduating class as the baseline (data from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972) but allow coefficients to be survey-wave specific. Each number represents the mean conditional probability that a student from 1972 in a given cell would have been admitted to a given college type during the respective survey year. The covariates used for the regression include only test decile dummies and regional dummies; a version based on a more thorough set of covariates is available in the online appendix at ⟨http://e-jep.org⟩. Also see notes under Table 3.