Episode 6: Gaming the school allocation system

For many families, choosing a school is one of the most important decisions they will ever make for their children's future. In a study based on Vienna residency records, WU researcher Anita Zednik from the Institute for Markets and Strategy shows that some parents strategically exploit the rules of the school allocation system to improve their children’s chances of gaining entry to their preferred school. In WU’s Welthandelsplatz 1 podcast, Zednik discusses her findings and reflects on broader questions of fairness and equal opportunities in the education system.

Address changes peak ahead of school enrollment

For her study, Anita Zednik analyzed anonymized residency data for around 330,000 children in Vienna, covering a period of 94 months. This dataset makes it possible to systematically track address changes and subsequent returns to previous addresses, which has allowed Zednik to identify what she has termed “return moves.” This means that parents register their children at a different address shortly before school enrollment starts, only to re-register the kids at the original address afterward.

“You could call this a fake relocation,” says Zednik. “Parents temporarily change their kids’ official place of residence for the school enrollment process and then switch back to the original address,” she explains. Her analysis shows that such short-term address changes occur over four times more often for kids shortly before school enrollment than for children who are not approaching enrollment age. Even though the phenomenon is relatively rare overall, it is still clearly visible in the data.

Educational backgrounds matter

The study also shows that these strategies are not used equally across different families. Families with higher levels of educational attainment and Austrian citizenship are significantly more likely to make such address changes than families with lower levels of education or non-Austrian citizenship. “People with greater access to information, networks, or resources are often better positioned to take advantage of existing rules,” says Zednik. As a result, such practices may further reinforce existing inequalities in educational opportunities.

People’s trust in the school matching system takes a hit

In addition, Anita Zednik also surveyed over 1,300 parents of first-graders. The results show that parents who have heard of these strategies or know someone who has resorted to a “fake relocation” view the school allocation process much more critically. While around one in three parents who were unaware of such practices considered the school matching system to be fair, that figure was down to only about one in two among those parents who knew someone who had used a “fake relocation.” “Practices like these hurt people’s trust in the school education system as a whole,” Zednik points out.

Detailed study results and further information

Anita Zednik (2025): Strategic Residential Location Choice: How Parents Game Priorities in School Matching. Management Science, Vol. 71(12), pp. 10486-10504. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2021.03711