EURO 2025 Leeds
Abstract Submission

2873. School Choice in Chile

Invited abstract in session WD-23: OR Challenges for Developing Countries 2, stream OR for Societal Development.

Wednesday, 14:30-16:00
Room: Esther Simpson 3.01

Authors (first author is the speaker)

1. Andres Cristi
Universidad de Chile
2. José Correa
Departamento de Ingenieria Industrial, Universidad de Chile
3. Natalie Epstein
Industrial Engineering, Universidad de Chile
4. Rafael Epstein
Industrial Engineering, University of Chile
5. Juan Escobar
University of Chile
6. Ignacio Rios
University of Texas at Dallas
7. Nicolás Aramayo
11 plaza, Universidad de Chile
8. Bastián Bahamondes
Universidad de Chile
9. Carlos Bonet
DRO, Columbia
10. Martin Castillo
New York University
11. Boris Epstein
Universidad de Chile
12. Felipe Subiabre
Universidad de Chile

Abstract

Centralized school admission mechanisms are an attractive way of improving
social welfare and fairness in large educational systems. In this talk, we will discuss the design and implementation of the recently established school choice system in Chile, which handles the applications of over 500'000 students to around 10'000 schools every year. The Chilean system presents unprecedented design challenges that make it unique. First, it is a simultaneous nationwide system, making it one of the largest school choice problems worldwide. Second, the system is used for all school grade levels, from prekindergarten to 12th grade. One of our primary goals is to favor the assignment of siblings to the same school. By adapting the standard notions of stability, we show that a stable assignment may not exist. Hence, we propose a heuristic approach that elicits preferences and breaks ties between students in the same priority group at the family level. In terms of implementation, we adapt the deferred acceptance algorithm as in other systems around the world.

Keywords

Status: accepted


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