Econ 421: Economics of Reed College
Fall 2007
Assignment #1
Due: Wednesday, September 5

To help establish Reed's place in the constellation of institutions of higher education, we would like you to consider differences between Reed and other institutions and among various student populations. Linked here you will find a partial copy of the "Admitted Student Questionnaire," which is administered to students admitted to Reed (and many other schools). You may have filled out this questionnaire before coming to Reed.

1. Fill out the first two pages of the survey-questions 1 through 39-recalling information about schools and acceptances as best you can. You don't need to turn your answers in, but use them in the second question and bring them to class on Wednesday.

2. Among the characteristics that you ranked as "Very Important" on page 1, on which did you rate Reed higher than your alternative school? On which did you rate Reed lower?

3. Consider the pools of students admitted to both Reed and: (a) Lewis & Clark, (b) Oberlin, (c) University of Chicago, (d) UC-Berkeley. For each pool, decide which categories 1-16 you think that group of students would rank as very important. On which of these "very important" characteristics do you think that pool of students would rate Reed higher than the rival school and on which would they rate Reed lower than the rival? Where there are differences among pools (a) through (d), discuss why you think these differences would arise.

4. For the same pools of students, which of the adjectives shown in questions 37-39 do you think they would choose to describe Reed significantly more often than they would choose it to describe the alternative school? Which would they choose to describe the alternative school more often than Reed?