%0 Report
        %A Blanden, Jo
%A Cassagneau-Francis, Oliver
%A Macmillan, Lindsey
%A Wyness, Gill
        %T Private Highs: Investigating University Overmatch Among Students from Elite Schools
        %D 2025
        %8 2025 Oct
        %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        %C Bonn
        %7 IZA Discussion Paper
        %N 18171
        %U https://www.iza.org/publications/dp18171
        %X Inequality in college attendance is a key driver of intergenerational mobility. We focus upstream to examine how elite high-schools – specifically UK private (feepaying) schools – shape university destinations across the achievement distribution. Using linked-administrative data, we show the main advantage conferred by private schools is not access to elite colleges for their best students, but that lower-achieving students are more likely to ‘overmatch’: lower-achieving pupils from private schools enrol in university courses around 15 percentiles higher ranked than similarly qualified state-school students. Examining mechanisms, we show that this overmatch is driven largely by differences in application behaviour.
        %K private schools
%K higher education
%K educational economics
%K college choice
%K mismatch