Am I An Impostor? The Impacts of Being Admitted to College Through Affirmative Action

Dear all,

You are cordially invited to the first session of the FASS Brown Bag Seminar Series in Semester 2 of AY22/23. Dr Siddharth George (FASS Economics) will be presenting on “Am I An Impostor? The Impacts of Being Admitted to College Through Affirmative Action”.

Date: 26 January, 12 – 1pm
Venue: Online via Zoom
Register: Zoom

Am I An Impostor? The Impacts of Being Admitted to College Through Affirmative Action
We study how being admitted via affirmative action affects the self-image and academic performance of minority students in China. Several unique features of China's college admissions system allow us to cleanly estimate the impact of getting admitted to a particular college on merit vs by affirmative action. We find that students admitted via affirmative action have worse self-image, perform worse academically, have lower career aspirations. Collectively, our results suggest that affirmative action triggers impostor feelings among minority students, which may hurt their performance in elite environments.

Siddharth George is an Assistant Professor of Economics at NUS. His research interests are in development economics, political economy and labour economics. Prior to joining NUS last year, he taught at Boston University and Dartmouth College.

If you have any queries, please email fassresearchevents@nus.edu.sg. We look forward to your attendance.