In the first chapter, "Short but Sweet? List Length Limits in School Assignment Systems," I investigate the impact of application length limits in centralized school assignment systems, focusing on Chilean higher education admissions. Over the past few decades, centralized school assignment systems have become more common throughout the world, and are currently in use by hundreds of school systems. The vast majority impose a “length limit” on the number of programs an applicant can rank on their application. Beyond purely mechanical effects, applicants constrained by this limit may also strategically decide which programs to include, even if the assignment algorithm would be strategy-proof with no limit, as in the common deferred acceptance algorithm. I study the impact of length limits in the Chilean centralized higher education admissions system, which has used deferred acceptance since the 1980s. I estimate an admission probability belief model to better match survey evidence and a preference and ROL formation model incorporating truthful- and sophisticate-type applicants, ranking costs, and program field random coefficients. I then simulate the equilibrium of the system under counterfactual length limits, accounting for equilibrium changes in (subjective) admission probabilities. Keeping in mind the difficulties in estimation and simulation to match the ROL length distribution in the data, I find minor aggregate welfare impacts (-0.44% from reducing the length limit from 10 to 4) but more notable differences between truthful and sophisticate applicants (-4.1% and +1.2%, respectively). This suggests policymakers may not be concerned by the aggregate losses, but an aim to “level the playing field” may still give reason to loosen the length limit.

In the second chapter, "First or Nothing? Match Rank Effects in School Assignment Systems," I analyze how applicants respond to being matched to lower-ranked preferences rather than their top choice. I examine the impact of applicants not being matched to their first-ranked university program on enrollment, persistence, graduation, and reapplication using a regression discontinuity design. While such matches significantly decrease the applicant’s likelihood of enrolling in their matched program (-44pp), they do not strongly affect the applicant’s likelihood of enrolling in university in general. This has implications for the impact of length limit changes on universities and offers a potential explanation for the persistence of these limits despite their apparent negative impact on applicants.