TY - JOUR AB - This paper provides one of the first natural experimental evidence on the consequences of a transition from college-major (early specialization) to college-then-major (late specialization) choice mechanism. Specifically, we study a recent reform in China that allows college applicants to apply to a meta-major consisting of different majors and to declare a specialization late in college instead of applying to a specific major. Using administrative data over 18 years on the universe of college applicants in a Chinese province, we examine the impacts of the staggered adoption of the reform across institutions on student composition changes. We find substantial heterogeneous effects across institutions and majors despite the aggregate null effects. This paper provides important policy implications regarding college admissions mechanism designs. AU - Ma, Lipiing AU - Li, Xin AU - Zhu, Qiong AU - Ye, Xiaoyang PY - 2022 ST - College-Major Choice to College-then-Major Choice: The Heterogeneous Impacts of Late Specification Reforms on College Student Composition TI - College-Major Choice to College-then-Major Choice: The Heterogeneous Impacts of Late Specification Reforms on College Student Composition UR - http://www.edworkingpapers.com/ai22-695 ER -