Mikkel Gandil and Edwin Leuven
We study how GPA-based and holistic admission tracks in a centralized college market affect programs' degree completion through the information (screening) and selection (sorting) they generate. We validate a simple partial equilibrium model of program admissions by exploiting admission cutoffs and a reform that relaxed caps on holistic seats. We find that programs choose cutoffs and quotas so that marginal completion is similar across tracks when holistic quotas are slack but higher in the holistic track when they bind. A sorting–screening decomposi- tion shows that at the admission margin most gains from holistic admissions come from self-selection of higher-potential students into the holistic track, with modest screening gains. Programs do not internalize admission externalities, and marginal applicants rejected from the holistic track are about 5 percentage points less likely to complete a degree elsewhere than comparable GPA-track rejects, with gaps in selective programs with small holistic quotas twice as high. Expanding holis- tic quotas in constrained programs would thus raise total degree completion, and we find that this favors students with weaker academic records and family back- grounds.