Quality differentials in Italian Universities' freshmen: the case of Medical and Dental Surgery schools

The paper compares the quality of Italian Medical schools� freshmen on the basis of the scores obtained in the locally conducted entry exams which are using a common national test frame. The test is quite selective (partly because of the reduced size of the intake yearly allowed): winners are people on average better than the average graduates of their own secondary schools and 15% of them have already had some college education in other fields. Among Universities there appear to be sizable and stable over time differences in the average quality of freshmen; while students from the South have on average worse results in the tests, those of them moving to Northern Universities contribute to the higher average quality of these Universities� freshmen. Comparing, for Dental Surgery schools which have used both, local tests and a national test (the position in the national test governing the priority in the choice of the school where to enroll), it seems that the latter amplifies (shrinks) the difference between (within each of the several) Universities in the freshmen�s composition.