COLLEGE ADVISING AND GENDER

This paper uses a field experiment to identify college advising gender biases. Five hundred and thirty surveys are randomized over a national sample of practicing advisors such that student gender is the “treatment” of the experiment. I find that advisors discount the ability of female students relative to males by statistically significant magnitudes in both mathematics and English. Additionally, male advisors recommend mathematics with much greater likelihood than do female advisors. (JEL I2, J16)