This paper examines whether high-speed Internet affects students' college applications. Our analysis links the diffusion of residential broadband to the testing and application outcomes of millions of PSAT and SAT takers and reveals that students with broadband in their postal code perform better on the SAT and apply to a higher number and more expansive set of colleges. While the availability of broadband generally improved applications to college, the effects appear to be concentrated among high-SES students, suggesting that the new technology may have increased preexisting inequities.

We estimate whether students update the colleges to which they consider applying in response to large, unanticipated information shocks generated by the release of SAT scores—a primary factor in admission decisions. Exploiting population data on the timing of college selection and a policy that induces students to choose colleges prior to taking the exam, we find that students update their portfolios in terms of selectivity, tuition, and sector. However, the magnitude of updating is too modest to significantly reduce unexplained variation across students, suggesting that nonacademic factors are the dominant determinants of college match.