This paper looks into the relationship between students’ university choices and their secondary school background. The main aim is to assess the role of secondary schools in steering university applications toward local or non-local institutions, also in the light of the tertiary education supply available in students’ areas of residence. With this aim, we classify students’ mobility choices by using a robust definition of local and non-local universities that accounts for the uncertainty in the definition of students’ local areas and their characteristics. In this framework, we apply a multilevel model to jointly consider the high school effect on the probability of students belonging to one specific category of mobility (local, forced non-local, free non-local) conditional upon students’ macro areas of residence, their chosen university and field of study. The findings highlight that high schools have a relevant role in affecting students’ mobility choices, especially when considering local universities. The magnitude of the effect depends on students’ macro area of residence. In particular, this result highlights that schools may pursue specific guidance policies to address students’ choices toward local universities; furthermore, it suggests that their influence on students is stronger in areas hosting the most important universities.

本文探讨了学生的大学选择与其中学背景之间的关系。主要目的是评估中学在引导大学申请转向本地或非本地机构方面的作用，同时还要考虑到学生居住地区提供的高等教育。为此，我们通过使用本地和非本地大学的稳健定义对学生的流动性选择进行分类，该定义考虑了学生本地区域及其特征定义的不确定性。在此框架中，我们应用多层次模型来共同考虑高中对属于某一特定流动类别（本地、强制非本地、免费非本地）的学生概率的影响) 取决于学生居住的宏观区域、他们选择的大学和学习领域。调查结果强调，高中在影响学生的流动性选择方面发挥着相关作用，尤其是在考虑当地大学时。影响的大小取决于学生居住的宏观区域。特别是，这一结果突出表明，学校可能会采取具体的指导政策来解决学生对本地大学的选择；此外，这表明他们对学生的影响在拥有最重要大学的地区更强。