Predicción de notas en Derecho de la Universidad de Chile: ¿sirve el ranking?

In this article we analyze the characteristics of students who took the Test of University Selection (PSU in Spanish) in the year 2004 and were admitted into the Faculty of Law at the Universidad de Chile. The explanatory capacity of the admission system is evaluated, using the PSU test and the Secondary Education Grades (NEM) as well as the relative ability or ranking of students in the secondary school they graduated from. The average grades of students in their fifth year of university are used as an explanatory variable. The results show that the ranking increases the explanatory capacity by half a percentage point - helping to identify the students’ academic abilities. Being the best student in high school implies 3 additional tenths (+0.3%) in the average grades gotten at the Faculty of Law of the Universidad de Chile.