College Entrance Exam Participation Graduation Proxy
RCTReview
Measuring secondary school completion rates in developing nations is frequently hampered by unreliable local school tracking and incomplete administrative identification records.
Picture this
If local schools keep messy graduation records, researchers can check the registry of a mandatory national college entrance test that 90% of high school graduates take. Showing up for the national exam serves as a concrete, objective proof that a student completed secondary schooling.
What the evidence says
Because 90% of high school graduates sit for the ICFES exam, registration served as a high-precision proxy for high school completion, revealing that vocational voucher winners were 5 to 6 percentage points (a 25% relative increase) more likely to complete secondary school than losers.
- Who was studied
- N = 3,422 human secondary school voucher applicants (1995 cohort) matched to administrative test records in Bogotá, Colombia.
- How
- Longitudinal matching of randomized lottery records to national college entrance exam (ICFES) administrative registries using multi-stage ID, city, and name matching algorithms.
What to do
Utilize national standardized exam administrative registries as primary proxies for high school completion in contexts with incomplete school-level administrative records.
From the source
"Since 90% of Colombian students take the ICFES exam (World Bank 1993), this is likely a good proxy for high school graduation, while only about 75% of these students go on to post-secondary schooling... Hence, we view participation in the ICFES exam as a proxy for high school graduation more than an indicator of college attendance."
Are Educational Vouchers Only Redistributive?