TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Blanden, Jo
AU  - Cassagneau-Francis, Oliver
AU  - Macmillan, Lindsey
AU  - Wyness, Gill
        TI  - Private Highs: Investigating University Overmatch Among Students from Elite Schools
        PY  - 2025/Oct/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 18171
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp18171
        AB  - 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.
        KW  - private schools
KW  - higher education
KW  - educational economics
KW  - college choice
KW  - mismatch
        ER  -