<p>Our daughter really liked Loyola University Chicago, but the gender imbalance eventually led her to cross it off her list. She might have reconsidered if the financial aid had been a bit better. I’ve heard that the male applicants get more financial aid so as to draw them in to the school, but that could be just a rumor.</p>
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<p>Consider Cornell.</p>
<p>It has an awesome engineering program and about a 50/50 ratio of men to women in the university as a whole.</p>
<p>Mary–the one school we looked at that had the 70/30 split alluded to that. They didn’t come right out and say “hey, we give more money to men” but they did say that they are doing “what they can” to attract more men to the school…</p>
<p>It used to be that being a female in a STEM area was a major hook and you could pretty much write your own ticket for college, it’s almost getting to the point where being male in any major will get you some extra funds to attend. We might have to explore that a bit more with our son.</p>
<p>I still can’t get past the comment in this thread generalizing that the boys are “smarter” than the girls…what’s with that!!!</p>
<p>Brown is a terrific place to go if you want a favorable climate for your son while studying Engineering. The college as a whole is 55%-60% female, but the real bonus (assuming your son is straight), is that half the guys there are checking each other out rather than the girls! This radically boosts the effective ratio to closer to 2 to 1 f/m.</p>
<p>Lol, I was thinking the same thing about liberal arts colleges…that there seems to be a high % of gay men. I think that is a stereotype and an exaggerated one, but my anecdotal evidence can tell you the lac in my backyard that attracts kids from all over, does seem to have more guys that like guys…when compared to society in general. </p>
<p>But, then again most of the kids I know personally that attend, female and male, are gay. My cousin is gay and an English/theatre major, so maybe that is skewing my data. Lol.</p>
<p>My D attends a school with a 30/70 female/male ratio. She said that it is more like 50/50, since only about 30% of the guys socialize, and the others sit in their rooms and play video games.</p>
<p>BrunonianGrad, you might want to recalculate your numbers. I’ve been told by someone who recently graduated from Brown that quite a few of the girls are checking out the other girls, and I suspect that is true at a great many of these schools with a majority of girls. So I am not so sure that your conclusions about the advantages for the straight guys or some of the other similar conclusions offered here are valid.</p>
<p>“The gender imbalance isn’t just at small LAC, it’s pretty much everywhere. I just looked at 20 major state universities and only 1 had a 50/50 split, the rest were closer to 60/40 women/men . . .”</p>
<p>NY Times Magazine had an article last year reporting on this issue: they interviewed some women from UNC-CH who indicated it was very difficult to find a man interested in dating on a regular basis because there were so many women and the “hook-up” culture had pushed out the more traditional male-female dating relationship.</p>
<p>There was recently an article in the NYT about gender imbalance at UNC Chapel Hill, so it’s not just a problem with LACS or schools that don’t have engineering.</p>
<p>Young men are just not going to college in the same numbers as young women. There’s no way around it.</p>
<p>Crossposted with glido above.</p>
<p>NJSue-I agree. More men filter into the military and trade programs then women and that is going to throw off the balance at 4 year schools yet you still see the k-12 programs pushing girls into college more so than boys.</p>
<p>DS is currently at an all male HS. He loves it and would do it again in a heart beat…but…he is looking at the gender distribution at colleges and wants a more balanced environment. Of course for him at this point a 70/30 female to male ratio IS attractively balanced :)</p>
<p>Come to think of it, it’s striking to me how many younger women I know who did not meet their husbands or boyfriends in school. The pickings may be too slim. Will the younger generation go online now to find mates rather than assuming that they’ll meet someone in college?</p>
<p>Gender imbalance has been a concern for college administrators for at least a decade, if not longer. Six or seven years ago I read an article about how adding a football program at an LAC could prove to be a draw for boys: some because they could continue to play in college (a few on scholarships, others as walk-ons), and some because their HS pal was on the team there.</p>
<p>mspearl, the low numbers of straight boys in theater is something that Happykid has noted. Between the not-straight boys, and the straight ones who don’t have much of a fore-brain yet, the straight girls have very little to pick from.</p>
<p>^^While that’s an option that’s more often considered these days, and what I did myself, I think there’s more to it than that. I personally know very few women aged 18-22 who are even interested in meeting their “mate” while they are still in college. I don’t think most of this generation WOULD still assume they’ll meet their mate in college regardless of the pickings, they don’t want to.</p>
<p>I am pretty sure Ohio State is a rarity in that it is slightly more male than female. This is my daughters future home…</p>
<p>splokey–I certainly did not mean that boys are smarter than girls!!</p>
<p>But an earlier poster was wondering where all the boys are, and what is up with boys not doing their homework. I was speculating that they are the ones not bothering with annoyances like homework & notebook checks, thus not getting the grades, when they may be smarter than some of the “good” students who are following the rules and getting accepted to colleges in droves. That’s all.</p>
<p>Emaheevul07–I think you are right, and it’s sad. Kids (some of them) spend 4 years “hooking up” and never think to look for “the one.” I think it’s harder to meet new people after you are out of college. The pickings are smaller and, um, picked over. Depends on what field you find work in, of course, and where you hang out.</p>
<p>My “guys” don’t seem to be looking for their mate either, so I think it cuts both ways. There are more females in most colleges but the many of the guys aren’t ready to find a lifelong “mate.” That’s fine by me, mid-to late twenties is plenty young to get married and in this economy it’s going to take the kids that long to settle down financially. College is too expensive for kids to be concerned about “mate shopping” although I thought that thinking went out in the early 60s. I did laugh because #3 is starting to look at colleges and recently returned from a visit to an LAC with one of those 70% girls/30% guys and he said the girls were all pretty. He thought that was just fine. His two older brothers were/are at colleges that are more balanced.</p>
<p>This article came out when my oldest was applying:
[To</a> All the Girls I’ve Rejected - New York Times](<a href=“Opinion | To All the Girls I've Rejected - The New York Times”>Opinion | To All the Girls I've Rejected - The New York Times)</p>
<p>Then, more about closing the girl-gap-in-science last year:
<a href=“Closing the Girl Gap in Science - The New York Times”>Closing the Girl Gap in Science - The New York Times;
<p>Full disclosure: I am biased. I have 3 boys, all great students, who are not as forthright as the girls in this community. They were constantly reminded of the double-standard wherever they went. Yes, we have “Career Days” for girls, etc, etc. and a whole slew of other celebrate-the-girls, but nothing for the guys. I know guys mature later than girls, and eventually there used to be a balance, but within schools/society today, that pressure to succeed early in school is getting younger and younger. (Holding a pencil, reading, quietly sitting still, following ‘rules’ = these are more likely to be girl-skills than boys. I see it everyday. I am a 3rd grade teacher!) Girls can get onboard faster and that gap is getting stretched and will continue to stretch until there is another movement like “Take your /D/a/u/g/h/// SON to work”, which is when this trend started.</p>
<p>Thank you, limabeans. This is what I have read and feel is true also, but I am not a 3rd grade teacher! :)</p>