Pray For Sunshine

The Journal of Behavioral Decision Making has students everywhere up in arms over its latest report.

Clouds Make Nerds Look Good: Field Evidence of the Impact of Incidental Factors on Decision Making reports the odds of getting into a college are affected by the weather on the day their applications are reviewed.

Specifically, sunny weather lowers the college admissions bar.

The author of the study looked at 682 applicant files, “each with 16 different academic and extracurricular ratings, along with recommendations from two reviewers.”

Applications reviewed on the sunniest days were more than 10 percent likelier to be accepted, and the good weather prompted reviewers to give less weight to academic achievement.

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