Students admitted to schools where their academic preparation is well below their classmates' may learn less, leave demanding fields, or graduate less often than they would at a school matched to their preparation.
Richard Sander argued it in 2004 in an analysis of American law schools, claiming that admissions preferences left many Black students at schools where they finished lower in the class and passed the bar less often than they would have elsewhere. Arcidiacono, Aucejo and Hotz found in 2016 that minority students at more selective University of California campuses were less likely to finish science degrees than similar students at less selective ones. Bleemer found in 2022 that ending racial preferences in California lowered degree completion and later wages for the students affected, the opposite of what mismatch predicts.
In practice
- A strong student admitted to a highly selective engineering programme finds herself at the bottom of the curve and switches to a major where her grades recover.
- A pupil moved up a set in maths spends the year lost, and does better when moved back to the set that matches her preparation.
- Possible explanations
- The proposed explanation is relative preparation: a student placed well below their classmates may struggle, lose confidence and switch away from demanding subjects, where the same student would have persisted elsewhere.
- In its favour
- Evidence of mismatch is strongest for persistence in science and engineering majors, where studies of the University of California found similar students more likely to finish at less selective campuses.
- Against it
- Studies of overall graduation and earnings, including the natural experiment created when California ended racial preferences, mostly point the other way, and the hypothesis is politically charged, which has affected how both sides read the data.
- Standing
- Politically charged and empirically disputed. Evidence of mismatch is strongest for persistence in science and engineering majors; studies of overall graduation and earnings, including the natural experiment in California, mostly point the other way. Compare the big-fish-little-pond effect and the Dale–Krueger finding.
- Subject
- Learning & Education
- Essay
- Theories of teaching, and what schools are for