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Evidence from NYC Specialized High Schools","","Using New York City Department of Education administrative records linked with Google transit directions, the study quantifies how commute burden shapes applications to the most selective public exam high schools. Results show that longer commutes substantially reduce applications, with large gaps even for the top school in New York State. For two high-performing schools above the 99th performance percentile, commute sensitivity is even stronger. The analysis also connects eighth-grade exam scores to applicants’ understanding of admissions.",{"@graph":69,"@context":123},[70,84,106],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/how-do-students-value-an-elite-education-evidence-from-nyc-specialized-high-schools/274643/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/how-do-students-value-an-elite-education-evidence-from-nyc-specialized-high-schools/274643.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Franzy","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-29","2026-09-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":105},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",17,{"@type":107,"mainEntity":108},"FAQPage",[109,115,119],{"name":110,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":112},"How does commute time affect students’ likelihood of applying to elite NYC high schools?","Question",{"text":113,"@type":114},"Longer commutes markedly deter students from applying, including for the most elite options. The negative impact is strong and persists across multiple model specifications.","Answer",{"name":116,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":117},"How is transit information incorporated into the analysis?",{"text":118,"@type":114},"The study matches students’ locations in NYC Department of Education data with Google transit mapping to estimate travel times and modes, including buses, subway, and transfers.",{"name":120,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":121},"What role do eighth grade exam scores play in the admissions process?",{"text":122,"@type":114},"Students who perform better on the Specialized High School Admissions Test tend to have a better understanding of how admissions works, including rating choices that are less likely to be nonsensical.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":125,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":127,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":129,"site_id":62},274643,1789480542,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":132},{"doc_id":129,"user_id":133,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":134,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":135,"file_id":136,"file_url":137,"file_type":138,"file_size":139,"view_count":105,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":140,"language":141,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":142,"faqs":143,"seo_title":144,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":130,"read_time":145,"preview_page_count":4},2336478945519,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_085a072bc5b1113ac321206ff7593b45","How Do Students Value an Elite Education? Evidence from NYC Specialized High Schools.  \nLawrence Costa∗ & JJ Naddeo†  \nSeptember 11, 2024  \nAbstract  \nAre students willing to brave long commutes for access to good schools? Using New York City Department of Education administrative data matched with Google transit directions, we find that longer commutes from home markedly deter students from applying to even the most elite high schools. For the top public school in New York State, a student with a 20 minute commute is 73% more likely to apply than one who lives 40 minutes away. For two other schools above the 99th percentile of performance, the differencesare 232% and 138% . We also find that eighth grade exam scores relate to how well students understand the admissions process.  \nJEL Codes: I20, R20, R21  \nKeywords: education, commuting, school choice, housing access  \n“Some of my students have to take three busses to get to school, so they just don’t show up most days.” – Philadelphia High School Teacher  \n∗ Contact: [email-lwc28@georgetown.edu](email-lwc28@georgetown.edu), phone- (724) 877-2500. Affiliation: Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Constitution Center 400 7th St. SW, Washington DC 20024 . Disclaimer: The analysis & conclusions are those of the author alone & should not be represented or interpreted as conveying an official Federal Housing Finance Agency position, policy, analysis, opinion, or endorsement.  \n†Contact: [jnaddeo@gmail.com](jnaddeo@gmail.com) Affiliation: U.S. Census Bureau Disclaimer: Any opinions & conclusions expressed herein are those of the authors & do not represent the views of the U.S. Census Bureau. All work was done prior to J.J. Naddeo joining the Census.  \n1 Introduction  \nDespite extensive work on willingness to commute from home and wages, we know little about how teenagers value the trade off between school quality and commute time. School access is a popular education policy topic, but might proximity be more important? Our findings suggest so, and thus access to good schools could be of second order importance relative to housing access.  \nWe address this topic by estimating how commutes affect students’ willingness to apply to the best public schools in New York City. 1 An NYC Department of Education administrative dataset provides us access to students’ demographic characteristics, standardized test performance, place of residence, and preferences for the city’s highly selective exam high schools. From this, we use their location data and Google’s mapping service to find transit times and mode (subway, bus, number of transfers, etc.) . With the resulting data, we estimate a discrete choice model for the likelihood that a student applies to a particular school. We find that longer commutes make students dramatically less likely to apply to even the best high schools. The effect size increases as school quality falls (in our sample, from the best2 public school in the state to one at the 99th percentile) . We also find that relative commute times matter. Students are less likely to apply to a school if they have shorter commutes to an alternative option, though this dynamic is much weaker for the top school, Stuyvesant.  \nThe relationship between commute time and likelihood of applying to a school is strong and robust to several specifications. It holds when we consider the choice of whether to apply to a school or the choice of which school to rank first. And, it is robust to specifications including the type of commute entailed (walking, bus, train, number of transfers, etc.) . When we drop low scoring students (i. e., those we might say never have a realistic chance of scoring high enough to qualify for a selective school) from the sample the relationship tends, if anything, to get stronger.  \nAdditionally, we find students who do well on the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT)3 tend to have a better understanding of how the admissions process works (or perhaps their parents do anyway)","cbCaippsRxUZ02Cy","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaippsRxUZ02Cy","pdf",2697883,33,"English","# Introduction\n## Literature Review\n## Neighborhoods, Commutes, and Student Achievement\n## Discrete Choice Model and Results\n# Conclusion","[{\"question\":\"How does commute time affect students’ likelihood of applying to elite NYC high schools?\",\"answer\":\"Longer commutes markedly deter students from applying, including for the most elite options. The negative impact is strong and persists across multiple model specifications.\"},{\"question\":\"How is transit information incorporated into the analysis?\",\"answer\":\"The study matches students’ locations in NYC Department of Education data with Google transit mapping to estimate travel times and modes, including buses, subway, and transfers.\"},{\"question\":\"What role do eighth grade exam scores play in the admissions process?\",\"answer\":\"Students who perform better on the Specialized High School Admissions Test tend to have a better understanding of how admissions works, including rating choices that are less likely to be nonsensical.\"}]","How Do Students Value an Elite Education? Evidence from NYC Specialized High Schools | PDF",83]