<p>is the princeton selection process completely random---does it focus on gender and ethnicity more?</p>
<p>affirmative action sucks.</p>
<p>It's not focused on gender, but race (not ethnicity) is surely a factor. Hey, at least our kids won't need to experience affirmative action. Hopefully.</p>
<p>I would have to disagree with you there cosmic. Admissions does look at your gender in relation to other things that you present them as an applicant. They aim to create the most gender-balanced class possible, even though at the moment Princeton is a bit male-heavy. As for the race/ethnicity thing, of course its a factor (even though in a perfect world it shouldn't be), but calling it affirmative action is not really correct. The admissions committee looks to find 'groups' with specfic academic and other factors that are underrepresented. As a very basic example, Asian students who intend to study classics or english are probably not as common, and good students like that would be highly prized by admissions. Also, black students who look to study math or science are also less common, and the University looks to find that sort of thing, although again that is an extremely rudimentary example.</p>
<p>I know that the school itself has more guys than girls, but how about the people who apply--is it still more guys who apply than girls? I guess what I'm trying to ask is what advantage/disadvantage is there to applying with respect to gender?</p>
<p>I think gender is basically a non-factor in the process, unless you're a prospective female engineer. That probably wouldn't tilt a decision in your favor, but it would guarantee you that your application would be read carefully.</p>
<p>Jon, an excellent source for that information is the Common Data Set for Princeton which can be found at the above link. For many years now there have been somewhat more men who apply to Princeton than women. This has been due to the prominence of the engineering programs which tend to attract more men. As for acceptance rates and matriculation rates, there is very little difference between women and men. For last years entering class the statistics were as follows:</p>
<p>Applicants:
8,744 men (53% of applicant pool)
7,766 women (47% of applicant pool)</p>
<p>Accepted:
980 men (11.2% of those who applied)
827 women (10.6% of those who applied)</p>
<p>Matriculated:
669 men (68.3% of those who were admitted)
560 women (67.7% of those who were admitted)</p>
<p>The Common Data Set information is available for most competitive schools. (Harvard is one of the few that does not provide this level of detail.) Links to other schools' CDS information can be found at a convenient web page provided by Yale. Here is the link:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.yale.edu/oir/otherlinks.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.yale.edu/oir/otherlinks.html</a></p>
<p>The Class of 2009 at Princeton was 54.2% male, and 45.8% female.</p>
<p>At Harvard, the Class of 2009 had 827 males and 828 females - virtually 50-50.</p>
<p>Dear Byerly,
No one cares. 54-46 is not a big enough disparity to scare anyone away.</p>
<p>At Stanford, the Class of 2009 was 51.7% male, and 48.3% female.</p>
<p>At Yale, the Class of 2009 was 50.7% male, and 49.3% female.</p>
<p>At Brown, the Class of 2009 was 51% female, and 49% male.</p>
<p>At Cornell, the Class of 2009 was 50.2% female, and 49.8% male.</p>
<p>I think the point is that final gender ratios for incoming classes tend to be very close to the ratios within the applicant pools. Youll find that schools with particularly strong engineering or science programs, have slightly more male applicants. While Cornell, Harvard and Stanford certainly have strong programs in these areas, concentrators in those disciplines form a much smaller percentage of the overall class at those schools than is true at a smaller school like Princeton where the BSE degree accounts for a much larger share of each class. If you look at MIT and CalTech youll find a similar bias in both the applicant pool and the final entering class. </p>
<p>I believe that what the above numbers show is that there is no bias in the admission process toward one gender or the other. Men and women are accepted and matriculate at roughly the same rates. Schools where a higher percentage of the undergraduate student body is pursuing engineering tend to have higher percentages of men.</p>
<p>This is likely to change at Princeton in the coming years as the expansion of the undergraduate classes will have a special emphasis on those interested in non-engineering fields with the result that a higher percentage of applicant pools will be women, bringing the gender ratio back toward 50/50. </p>
<p>Is that helpful, Jon?</p>
<p>Yes it is, thank you very much.</p>
<p>With all due respect, I think that explanation is a bit facile. </p>
<p>The fraction of the class that are math and science majors is just as high, or higher, at Stanford and Harvard as it is at Princeton. </p>
<p>There are other factors at play when it comes to gender imbalance. We needn't go into that now, as it has been dealt with in earlier threads.</p>
<p>MIT achieves a matriculant gender ratio similar to Princeton's although its applicant pool is even more heavily male. In contrast, the applicant pool at Brown is overwhelmingly female, but the matriculant ratio is far closer to parity.</p>
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<p>The fraction of the class that are math and science majors is just as high, or higher, at Stanford and Harvard as it is at Princeton. </p>
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<p>the disciplines at issue were not math and science, but <em>engineering</em> and science. and i think ptongrad2000 is right that the percentage of engineers is higher at princeton (~15%) than at some of its peers, which don't even <em>have</em> proper engineering schools but rather "divisions." to put a number on the sex disparity within engineering programs: at princeton, only about 30% of engineers, undergraduate and graduate, are female. </p>
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<p>There are other factors at play when it comes to gender imbalance. We needn't go into that now, as it has been dealt with in earlier threads.</p>
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<p>presumably, you refer to princeton's club-centered social scene. if this were truly disproportionately off-putting to women, not only would fewer apply to princeton (which is true), but fewer of those admitted would enroll. the CDS numbers, however, show that female and male admits elect to enroll at comparable rates.</p>
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<p>MIT achieves a matriculant gender ratio similar to Princeton's although its applicant pool is even more heavily male.</p>
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<p>yes, but only through heavy sex-based affirmative action. you yourself have pointed out the huge m/f disparity in admit rates.</p>
<p>All colleges conduct extensive surveys to learn why they "win" or "lose" with admits - particularly those who are cross admits with their principal rivals.</p>
<p>The fact is, Stanford's losses are disproportionately due to to the setting, as are Yale's, (with quite different perceived negatives) while Princeton's are disproportionately due to the perceived (ie, perceived in the eyes of those preferring to go elsewhere) negatives of the "eating clubs."</p>
<p>Whether any of this is justified is, of course, irrelevant. Stereotypes are hard to shake.</p>
<p>On behalf of those representing Princeton (unofficially of course!), Id like to offer Jon and the original poster my apologies for the change in tone of this thread. There will always be those who hijack threads, attempting to change the subject and pick a fight. I think your questions have been answered but if you would like to send me a private message Id be happy to try to answer (or research the answer to) any other questions about Princeton you might have.</p>
<p>byerly, seeing as your post #15 is totally unresponsive to my own post #14, i take it you concede my points. it's unresponsive to the whole thread too because, whatever the validity of your claims, they have nothing to do with the sex/gender disparities at issue.</p>
<p>I wasn't responding to you, and certainly don't "concede your points."</p>
<p>so you persist in believing that it's the eating clubs, and not the engineering school, that explains why fewer women apply to princeton? my back of the envelope calculations indicate that the latter can completely explain away the disparity. but if it's really the former explanation, shouldn't we expect an appreciably lower yield for the women admitted to princeton? as is, they enroll at a 67.7% rate, versus 68.3% for the men - a negligible difference.</p>
<p>A smaller disparity that in recent years, perhaps due to heavier recruiting by the feminocracy!</p>