Socioeconomic Mobility2023
Top-1% kids 2x more likely at Ivy-Plus at equal SAT (QJE 2023)
At equivalent SAT scores, children from top-1%-income families are more than 2x as likely to attend an Ivy-Plus college than middle-class peers; legacy applicants from top-1% families are 5x more likely to be admitted at equivalent scores.
Primary source
Chetty, Deming & Friedman, Opportunity Insights / QJE
https://opportunityinsights.org/paper/collegeadmissions/Published 2023 — compiled by JobCannon Research.
Why this stat matters
This figure belongs to the socioeconomic mobilityvertical of JobCannon's ongoing review of hiring, AI, and career-outcome research. We track it because it is one of the few primary-source estimates with a published sample, methodology, or legal record. Cite the original source first; this page exists to make the figure easy to find and link to.
Related stats
- >50% of elite firms use school name as primary cutRivera, Pedigree (Princeton Univ Press) — 2015
- Absolute income mobility fell from 90% (born 1940) to 50% (born 1980) (Chetty et al., Science)Chetty et al., Science 356(6336) / Opportunity Insights — 2017
- Degree inflation: production supervisor postings requiring degree rose from 16% to 67% since 1970Fuller et al., Dismissed by Degrees, HBS / Burning Glass 2017 — 2017
- First-gen disclosure cut callbacks 26% (Stanford GSB, n=1,783)Belmi, Neale, Thomas-Hunt & Raz, Organization Science — 2023
Find your career fit
JobCannon assessments map your strengths to careers using primary-source research like this one. Free, no signup required.
Take the RIASEC Test