Assessment of Admission Methods on Academic Performance for Economics Majors: An Empirical Study in Taiwan

This paper takes advantage of the department of Economics at National Tsing Hua University to empirically evaluate whether the academic performance differentials between pupils with difference entrance channels are existing across subjects and grades. Our results show that there academic performance exist differentials between the two groups in some subjects after controlling for the students' individual characteristics. The the core subjects in economics, such as Economics (I), Microeconomics (I) (II) and Macroeconomics (I) (II) exhibit academic performance gaps. We also find that the academic gaps between these two groups students are decline or disappear when pupils grow up. Our empirical results may suggest that the department recruits students by the College Admission through Recommendation and Screening (CARS) channel may recruits suitable students for economics core course, however, this advantage disappears as the students take the selective course.