Coordinating Manipulation in Real-time Interactive Mechanism of College Admission: Agent-Based Simulations

The matching in college admission is a typical example of applying algorithms in cyberspace to improve the efficiency of the corresponding process in physical space. This paper studies the real-time interactive mechanism (RIM) recently adopted in Inner Mongolia of China, where students can immediate...

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Main Authors: Lan Hou, Tao Jia, Xiangbing Wang, Tongkui Yu
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2020-01-01
Series:Complexity
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2020/8015979
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author Lan Hou
Tao Jia
Xiangbing Wang
Tongkui Yu
author_facet Lan Hou
Tao Jia
Xiangbing Wang
Tongkui Yu
author_sort Lan Hou
collection DOAJ
description The matching in college admission is a typical example of applying algorithms in cyberspace to improve the efficiency of the corresponding process in physical space. This paper studies the real-time interactive mechanism (RIM) recently adopted in Inner Mongolia of China, where students can immediately observe the provisional admission results for their applications and are allowed to modify the application before the deadline. Since the universities accept the applications according to the ranking of the scores, RIM is believed to make the competition more transparent. However, students may coordinate to manipulate this mechanism. A high-score student can perform a last-minute change on the university applied, opening a slot for a student with a much lower score. With agent-based simulations, we find that a large portion of students will choose to perform coordinating manipulation, which erodes the welfare and fairness of society. To cope with this issue, we investigate the Multistage RIM (MS-RIM), where students with different ranges of scores are given different deadlines for application modification. We find that the multistage policy reduces the chance of manipulation. However, the incentive to conduct manipulation is increased by a higher success rate of manipulation. Hence, the overall social welfare and fairness are further diminished under MS-RIM with a small number of stages, but are improved if the stage number is large.
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spelling doaj-art-80efdd013d074fc1afd90e2f89cded552025-02-03T00:58:51ZengWileyComplexity1076-27871099-05262020-01-01202010.1155/2020/80159798015979Coordinating Manipulation in Real-time Interactive Mechanism of College Admission: Agent-Based SimulationsLan Hou0Tao Jia1Xiangbing Wang2Tongkui Yu3College of Computer and Information Science, Southwest University, Beibei, Chongqing 400715, ChinaCollege of Computer and Information Science, Southwest University, Beibei, Chongqing 400715, ChinaSchool of Economics and Management, Guizhou University of Engineering Science, Bijie, Guizhou 551700, ChinaCollege of Computer and Information Science, Southwest University, Beibei, Chongqing 400715, ChinaThe matching in college admission is a typical example of applying algorithms in cyberspace to improve the efficiency of the corresponding process in physical space. This paper studies the real-time interactive mechanism (RIM) recently adopted in Inner Mongolia of China, where students can immediately observe the provisional admission results for their applications and are allowed to modify the application before the deadline. Since the universities accept the applications according to the ranking of the scores, RIM is believed to make the competition more transparent. However, students may coordinate to manipulate this mechanism. A high-score student can perform a last-minute change on the university applied, opening a slot for a student with a much lower score. With agent-based simulations, we find that a large portion of students will choose to perform coordinating manipulation, which erodes the welfare and fairness of society. To cope with this issue, we investigate the Multistage RIM (MS-RIM), where students with different ranges of scores are given different deadlines for application modification. We find that the multistage policy reduces the chance of manipulation. However, the incentive to conduct manipulation is increased by a higher success rate of manipulation. Hence, the overall social welfare and fairness are further diminished under MS-RIM with a small number of stages, but are improved if the stage number is large.http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2020/8015979
spellingShingle Lan Hou
Tao Jia
Xiangbing Wang
Tongkui Yu
Coordinating Manipulation in Real-time Interactive Mechanism of College Admission: Agent-Based Simulations
Complexity
title Coordinating Manipulation in Real-time Interactive Mechanism of College Admission: Agent-Based Simulations
title_full Coordinating Manipulation in Real-time Interactive Mechanism of College Admission: Agent-Based Simulations
title_fullStr Coordinating Manipulation in Real-time Interactive Mechanism of College Admission: Agent-Based Simulations
title_full_unstemmed Coordinating Manipulation in Real-time Interactive Mechanism of College Admission: Agent-Based Simulations
title_short Coordinating Manipulation in Real-time Interactive Mechanism of College Admission: Agent-Based Simulations
title_sort coordinating manipulation in real time interactive mechanism of college admission agent based simulations
url http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2020/8015979
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AT taojia coordinatingmanipulationinrealtimeinteractivemechanismofcollegeadmissionagentbasedsimulations
AT xiangbingwang coordinatingmanipulationinrealtimeinteractivemechanismofcollegeadmissionagentbasedsimulations
AT tongkuiyu coordinatingmanipulationinrealtimeinteractivemechanismofcollegeadmissionagentbasedsimulations