The Tracks We Don’t Follow: How Older Peers Shape Applications to Selective University Tracks

Joint work with Donia Kamel and Javier Soria Espín.

We study how the behavior of older peers influences university track choices in Sweden’s centralized, strategy-proof matching system. Exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in the enrollment shares of older high school peers across eight selective university tracks, we document a discouragement effect: a one percentage point rise in older-peer enrollment reduces the probability of ranking the track as one’s first choice by 0.15–0.87 percentage points (10–28% of the mean). This effect is largest among applicants with low to average grades and from the gender in minority in the given track, while high-achievers–especially migrants in Medicine–are unaffected. Our findings reveal a track-specific rank effect of potentially lower self-confidence and heightened perceived competition, highlighting contexts interventions may be necessary to better align aspirations with ability.

The analyses are conducted using registry data from Statistics Sweden, with ethics approval from the Swedish Ethical Review Authority.