Truthful revelation of preferences has emerged as a desideratum in the design of school choice programs. Gale-Shapley's deferred acceptance mechanism is strategy-proof for students but limits their ability to communicate their preference intensities. This results in ex-ante inefficiency when...

In July 2005 the Boston School Committee voted to replace the existing Boston school choice mechanism with a deferred acceptance mechanism that simplifies the strategic choices facing parents. This paper presents the empirical case against the previous Boston mechanism, a priority matching...

Centralized school assignment algorithms must distinguish between applicants with the same preferences and priorities. This is done with randomly assigned lottery numbers, nonlottery tie-breakers like test scores, or both. The New York City public high school match illustrates the latter, using...