Students' intellectual, social and personal development is highly influenced by peers during the college years. These changes can be understood in terms of social comparison theory, which outlines the consequences for group dynamics of people's need to evaluate their opinions and abilities....

In this paper I use data from Williams College to implement a quasi-experimental empirical strategy aimed at measuring peer effects in academic outcomes. In particular, I use data on individual student's grades, SAT scores, and the SAT scores of their roommates. I argue that first year roommates...

The quality of the education a student gets at a college or university depends both on the school's resources - faculty, facilities, libraries - and importantly on the quality of his or her fellow students. He or she simply learns more - better, faster, more deeply - in the company of able...