Preferences in college applications - a nonparametric Bayesian analysis of top-10 rankings

Applicants to degree courses in Irish colleges and universities rank up to ten degree courses from a list of over five hundred. These data provide a wealth of information concerning applicant degree choices. A Dirichlet process mixture of generalized Mallows models are used to explore data from a cohort of applicants. We find strong and diverse clusters, which in turn gains us important insights into the workings of the system. No previously tried models or analysis technique are able to model the data with comparable accuracy.