Related papers: Admissions Criteria and Diversity in Graduate Scho…
Despite limiting access to applicants from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, the practice of using hard or soft GRE cut-off scores in physics graduate program admissions is still a popular method for reducing the pool of…
Recent and influential critiques of standardized testing have noted the existence of non-trivial numbers of successful scientists who received low scores on the GRE. Here we use computer simulations to show that the prevalence of such…
A recent paper evaluating a new rubric-based graduate admissions approach using generic methods tentatively suggested that its decisions differed noticeably from the previous approach in an unspecified way. Using prior knowledge that the…
The ETS has recently released new estimates of validities of the GRE for predicting cumulative graduate GPA. They average in the middle thirties - twice as high as those previously reported by a number of independent investigators. It is…
Although different organizations have defined policies towards diversity in academia, many argue that minorities are still disadvantaged in university admissions due to biases. Extensive research has been conducted on detecting partiality…
There are many factors that can influence the outcome for students in a mathematics PhD program: bachelor's GPA (BGPA), bachelor's major, GRE scores, gender, Under-Represented Minority (URM) status, institution tier, etc. Are these…
While much of the rapidly growing literature on fair decision-making focuses on metrics for one-shot decisions, recent work has raised the intriguing possibility of designing sequential decision-making to positively impact long-term social…
Gender bias in grant allocation is a deviation from the principle that scientific merit should guide grant decisions. However, most studies on gender bias in grant allocation focus on gender differences in success rates, without including…
Even with recent increases in enrollments, computer science departments in the United States are not producing the number of graduates that the computing workforce needs, an issue that impacts the scientific and economic growth of our…
One argument for keeping the physics GRE is that it can help applicants who might otherwise be missed in the admissions process stand out. In this work, we evaluate whether this claim is supported by physics graduate school admissions…
Many U.S. colleges now use test-optional admissions. A frequent claim is that by not seeing standardized test scores, a college can admit a student body it prefers, say with more diversity. But how can observing less information improve…
Each year, selective American colleges sort through tens of thousands of applications to identify a first-year class that displays both academic merit and diversity. In the 2023-2024 admissions cycle, these colleges faced unprecedented…
This study evaluates the impact of students' usage of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools such as ChatGPT on their exam performance. We analyse student essays using GenAI detection systems to identify GenAI users among the…
We study the problem of selecting the top-k candidates from a pool of applicants, where each candidate is associated with a score indicating his/her aptitude. Depending on the specific scenario, such as job search or college admissions,…
We study how the design of admissions policies affects the ability of students admitted to universities. In our model, applicants have a multi-dimensional ability, which is a combination of a "type" and a "soft skill." Universities may…
A recent paper in Sci. Adv. by Miller et al. concludes that GREs do not help predict whether physics grad students will get Ph.D.s. The paper makes numerous elementary statistics errors, including introduction of unnecessary collider-like…
Among all of the first-year graduate students enrolled in doctoral-granting physics departments, the percentage of female and racial minority students has remained unchanged for the past 20 years. The current graduate program admissions…
Generative AI is transforming higher education, yet systematic evidence on student adoption, usage patterns, and perceived learning impacts remains scarce. Using survey data from a selective U.S. college, we document rapid generative-AI…
There is debate over whether Asian American students are admitted to selective colleges and universities at lower rates than white students with similar academic qualifications. However, there have been few empirical investigations of this…
We study the role of information and access in capacity-constrained selection problems with fairness concerns. We develop a statistical discrimination framework, where each applicant has multiple features and is potentially strategic. The…