The New York Times [free link]: “Elite colleges have long been filled with the children of the richest families: At Ivy League schools, one in six students has parents in the top 1 percent. A large new study, released Monday, shows that it has not been because these children had more impressive grades on average or took harder classes. They tended to have higher SAT scores and finely honed résumés, and applied at a higher rate — but they were overrepresented even after accounting for those things. For applicants with the same SAT or ACT score, children from families in the top 1 percent were 34 percent more likely to be admitted than the average applicant, and those from the top 0.1 percent were more than twice as likely to get in.

• The Study – The Determinants and Consequences of Admission to Highly Selective Colleges Diversifying Society’s Leaders? The Determinants and Causal Effects of Admission to Highly Selective Private Colleges, Raj Chetty, Harvard University and NBER; David J. Deming, Harvard University and NBER; John N. Friedman, Brown University and NBER.
• Executive Summary, Opportunity Insights – Diversifying Society’s Leaders? The Determinants and Consequences of Admission to Highly Selective Colleges