Comparative Study of University Admission Systems: A Market Design Perspective

Comparative Study of University Admission Systems: A Market Design Perspective

As we all know, the university entrance examination system will distribute the limited educational resources. Many countries around the world have set up various institutions to connect students with universities, each aiming to achieve fairness, efficiency and merit-based selection in different ways. In recent years, economists have paid more attention to the design of markets and matching theory in their studies of admission systems. Deferred Acceptance algorithm and other mechanisms have been employed to improve the stability and reduce the strategic behaviour of allocation. This paper studies university admission systems in the United States, the United Kingdom and China. This paper studies how these systems allocate university seats and assesses their efficiency in terms of market-equilibrium theory. Based on the previous studies and policies, this paper examines the effect of these admission rules on behaviour and allocation outcomes. Different modes of admission have been shown to have various trade-offs among fairness, efficiency and strategic depth. Centralised Matching Systems reduce manipulation and improve stability, but decentralised Systems offer more flexibility at the cost of efficiency.