Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Working Knowledge
Business Research for Business Leaders
  • Browse All Articles
  • Popular Articles
  • Cold Call Podcast
  • Managing the Future of Work Podcast
  • About Us
  • Book
  • Leadership
  • Marketing
  • Finance
  • Management
  • Entrepreneurship
  • All Topics...
  • Topics
    • COVID-19
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Finance
    • Gender
    • Globalization
    • Leadership
    • Management
    • Negotiation
    • Social Enterprise
    • Strategy
  • Sections
    • Book
    • Podcasts
    • HBS Case
    • In Practice
    • Lessons from the Classroom
    • Op-Ed
    • Research & Ideas
    • Research Event
    • Sharpening Your Skills
    • What Do You Think?
    • Working Paper Summaries
  • Browse All
    College Admissions as Non-Price Competition: The Case of South Korea
    27 Jan 2015Working Paper Summaries

    College Admissions as Non-Price Competition: The Case of South Korea

    by Christopher Avery, Alvin E. Roth and Soohyung Lee
    College admissions is a matching market—applicants cannot simply choose which college to attend, they must be admitted. From the perspective of colleges competing for top applicants, how can these institutions make the best strategic decisions and increase their own desirability? South Korea offers an ideal case study for analyzing efficiency in college admissions matching because the national government sets the rules in centralized fashion and South Korea has made several important changes in the rules in 1994. The authors develop a model to study the incentives for colleges before and after the reforms, and compare the predictions of the model to stylized facts about the behavior of South Korean colleges given each set of rules. The authors then assess the success of the reforms before and after these changes to admissions rules. Findings show that the 1994 South Korean college admission reforms increased the efficiency of the assignment process in two ways. First, these reforms reduced congestion, ensuring that all students could apply to at least three highly-ranked colleges (once in early admissions and then on two different dates in regular admissions). Second, this reform provided new information to colleges, enabling them to promote specialized matches in their regular admission decisions.
    LinkedIn
    Email

    Author Abstract

    This paper examines non-price competition among colleges to attract highly qualified students, exploiting the South Korean setting where the national government sets rules governing applications. We identify some basic facts about the behavior of colleges before and after a 1994 policy change that changed the timing of the national college entrance exam and introduced early admissions, and we propose a game-theoretic model that matches those facts. When applications reveal information about students that is of common interest to all colleges, lower-ranked colleges can gain in competition with higher-ranked colleges by limiting the number of possible applications.

    Paper Information

    • Full Working Paper Text
    • Working Paper Publication Date: December 2014
    • HBS Working Paper Number: NBER 20744
    • Faculty Unit(s): Negotiation, Organizations & Markets
      Trending
        • 13 Aug 2021
        • Research & Ideas

        Managers, Here’s How to Bond with New Hires Remotely

        • 09 Dec 2019
        • Research & Ideas

        Identify Great Customers from Their First Purchase

        • 25 Feb 2019
        • Research & Ideas

        How Gender Stereotypes Kill a Woman’s Self-Confidence

        • 13 May 2022
        • Research & Ideas

        Company Reviews on Glassdoor: Petty Complaints or Signs of Potential Misconduct?

        • 30 Nov 2021
        • Cold Call Podcast

        TikTok: Super App or Supernova?

    Alvin E. Roth
    Alvin E. Roth
    George Gund Professor of Economics and Business Administration, Emeritus
    Contact
    Send an email
    → More Articles
    Find Related Articles
    • Economics
    • Education
    • Indonesia

    Sign up for our weekly newsletter

    Interested in improving your business? Learn about fresh research and ideas from Harvard Business School faculty.
    ǁ
    Campus Map
    Harvard Business School Working Knowledge
    Baker Library | Bloomberg Center
    Soldiers Field
    Boston, MA 02163
    Email: Editor-in-Chief
    →Map & Directions
    →More Contact Information
    • Make a Gift
    • Site Map
    • Jobs
    • Harvard University
    • Trademarks
    • Policies
    • Digital Accessibility
    Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College