Mechanism Design Approach to School Choice: One versus Many

A vast majority of the school choice literature focuses on designing mechanisms to simultaneously assign students to many schools, and employs a “make it up as you go along” approach when it comes to each school’s admissions policy. An alternative approach is to focus on the admissions policy for one school. This is especially relevant for effectively communicating policy objectives such as achieving a diverse student body or implementing affirmative action. I argue that the latter approach is relatively under-examined and deserves more attention in the future.