CEDE Seminar - Tomás Rodríguez

This paper evaluates the causal impact of enrolling in a standard pre‐calculus course on students’ performance in differential calculus and their broader university trajectories at an elite university in Bogotá, Colombia. Using a fuzzy Regression Discontinuity Design that exploits the SABER 11 mathematics score cutoff of 79—above which students are exempt from the pre‐calculus requirement—we compare outcomes for students near the threshold. Our analysis reveals that enrollment in the pre‐calculus course increases differential calculus grades by approximately 0.12 grade points on a 0–5 scale and reduces the probability of failing the course by about 18 percentage points.

Heterogeneity analyses indicate that the benefits of the pre‐calculus course are notably larger for women than for men, with women experiencing a 27 percentage point reduction in failure probability (versus 15 percentage points for men) and a statistically significant grade improvement, while the effect for men is more variable. Moreover, significant differences emerge across students’ socioeconomic backgrounds—as measured by residential “estrato”—and their high school academic calendars. Despite the marked improvements in calculus performance, taking the pre‐calculus course does not delay overall graduation timelines.