Very interesting differences. Two-thirds of applicants to Brown are female.
They may be trying to even up their campus male/female ratio. They have a higher percentage of females currently.
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I am certain they are; the question remains whether that will be legal after June 2023. Brown needs more male applicants. Perhaps starting a business or engineering major would help.
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Brown has a longstanding engineering program (recently housed in the School of Engineering, but the major predates the SoE). It has also has undergraduate programs in business and entrepreneurship that are housed in the Econ and Sociology departments. You can also get an executive MBA in its School for Professional Studies (though this doesn’t affect undergraduate studies, of course). Brown has expanded its professional studies divisions beyond what they had when I was an undergraduate there in the '80s-'90s, I think creating an entirely new business school would be contrary to their liberal arts-focused mission.
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Interesting that Brown is the only Ivy League school with >60% of applicants who are female. (About 60% of college students overall are female.)
Also interesting that seven of the eight Ivy League schools saw a relatively large increase in the percentage of applicants who are female in the 2020-2021 application cycle compared to the 2019-2020 application cycle. Did COVID-19 (without vaccines and with various limitations on residential college life at the time of college applications in the 2020-2021 application cycle) disproportionately discourage male applicants?
Maybe women were more likely to not apply when schools were not test optional? So they got a bigger application number boost when schools went TO.
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If you look back at the common data sets, you’ll find it’s been like that for several years.
They do have two engineering majors and something called Business, Entrepreneurships, and Organizations (BEO). My Wharton son looked into Brown back when he was applying. I think BEO was some kind of fusion between econ and sociology. I don’t know how strong these departments are.
Brown’s line looks interesting, but so does Cornell’s. Those two are definitely the outliers, though for opposite genders.
I’ll also say that all posters coming on here saying “Chance me for Ivys and Similar” should have to look at this graph. There’s the climbing mountain lines for the numbers of men and women who applied, and then a pretty flat line just above zero for the number admitted. Helps put their chances in perspective. I can’t imagine that Brown is much different than any other Top X school in that respect.
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I assumed Cornell and Penn had more male applicants due to the strength of their engineering and biz programs. Not sure what else Brown can do to shore up male applicants. Maybe target recruiting?
Cornell is listed as having the highest acceptance rate for women. However, this is very school specific… essentially only at the engineering school, to keep a balanced male/female ratio within the engineering school. Some specific numbers are below.
Cornell Engineering: Men = 4% Admit Rate, Women = 10% Admit Rate
Cornell A&S: Men = 6% Admit Rate, Women = 5% Admit Rate
Cornell Overall: Men = 6.5% Admit Rate, Women = 8.0% Admit Rate
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Do they need to get more male applicants? The acceptance rate is still only 6.7% which is insane.
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Low rates for all, but I would worry if my applicant pool skewed heavily in either direction, particularly if gender balance is no longer a legal goal.
I think there are at least 2 key COVID-related factors. COVID led to Ivies (and other colleges) going test optional. Test optional tends to favor female applicants since tests are more likely to be a relative weak point for female applicants than male applicants, so test optional-related increase in applications tend to occur more for females than males.
The other is COVID led to some choosing to not apply who would otherwise have applied. I think this group is more likely to be males. Males are more likely to be encouraged to support family during financial challenges. I suspect they are also more likely to favor a gap year in general.
The 8 Ivies are listed in the article. None of these colleges have what I consider extreme difference in male/female admit rate. Using IPEDS 2021, the colleges with <25% admit rate with the most extreme differences are below. I did not include colleges that only admit a single gender, such as Barnard.
Largest Female/Male Admit Rate
- Olin – 40% Female / 12% Male
- Harvey Mudd – 16% Female / 7% male
- MIT-- 6% Female / 3% Male
- Caltech – 6% Female / 3% Male
- Babson – 36% Female / 20% Male
- Coast Guard – 27% Female / 16% Male
- CMU – 18% Female / 11% Male
- GeorgiaTech – 21% Female / 13% Male
Largest Male/Female Admit Rate
- Julliard – 10% Male / 6% Female
- RISD – 25% Male / 17% Female
- Boston U – 23% Male / 16% Female
- Vassar – 25% Male / 18% Female
- Brown – 7% Male / 5% Female
- Boston College – 23% Male / 17% Female
- West Point – 12% Male / 9% Female
- Swarthmore-- 9% Male / 7% Feale
Are we all worried that with a Brown 7% admissions rate for men and 5% female the university is at risk of being overrun by women??
I’m not sure what the problem is y’all are trying to solve. I’d be more concerned about West Point and the Coast Guard, frankly, since they are 100% supported by our tax dollars and there are some serious policy questions that MIGHT be raised (I said MIGHT, don’t all jump down my back). Fortunately, Data10 has kindly Georgia Tech-a perennial CC debate trigger-- which can keep this thread going until all the 2023 admissions data has been made public!
No, I am not worried about any college being overrun. But if gender balancing is no longer permitted after June 30,and assuming the applicants are equally qualified( they likely are) then I would expect that within a year or two Brown’s campus would reflect its applicant pool, that is, 2/3 female.
Do service academies have a different rationale for gender balancing than other schools? Perhaps, but it is unclear that would survive June.
Highly selective colleges like the Ivies all saw big increases in applications in 2020-2021.
Male applicants as a whole certainly weren’t discouraged. Given the increases, it seems more reasonable that female applicants with good grades but less stellar test scores may have felt empowered to take a shot because of test optional policies.
It’s my understanding that West Point has a similar admit rate for “qualified” male and female applicants. The issue is more that males are more likely to be “qualified”… perhaps being more likely to having a qualifying physical testing score and/or being more likely to get a recommendation from a congress member.
Coast Guard does appear to favor females, likely in an effort to improve gender balance. Last year, 42% of the class was women. It’s not a 50/50 split, but it’s a lot closer than the past.
Yes, the physical fitness tests would explain a difference. Of course, that won’t work at Brown…
What do you mean? At Brown, for example, male applicants are accepted at a rate 66% greater than female applicants.
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