@Gator88NE I’m not sure – likely bias against women since highest level symphonies/orchestras still seem to trend male-heavy? But I don’t know about the subtleties. I can imagine a scenario of certain instruments being linked as traditionally with one gender (harp: women, trombone: men) and if the opposite gender were auditioning, it might get subtle negative bias. But this is only my speculation.
Let me see if I have this right. Based on the summary posted, 1 std dev in attractiveness is worth .024, so the full range of the population from the least attractive to the most would be .14 on the GPA. That’s not terribly significant, and when looking at the full population, its probably impossible to decouple the effects of other personal traits - manners, neatness of work, posture in class, etc.
Apparently the students’ attractiveness was rated on the basis of their student ID photos. That right there makes the results suspect. Half of my students look nothing like their ID photos. I have a photo ID roster available to me to help me memorize student names and I’m always surprised at how much students have changed since they got the picture taken in August of the freshman year.
I also wonder how “attractiveness” is defined. It’s not really surprising to me that attractive people in general get a better response from others in all kinds of contexts, and academe is no exception. But attractiveness includes intangibles such as how you carry and present yourself and how you interact with others. Confident, well-groomed, articulate people are generally perceived as more attractive, rightly or wrongly, than visibly shy, ill-groomed, insecure people. I doubt that the quality of attractiveness can be boiled down to facial feature positioning ratios and BMI.
Not really shocking news. Attractive people are generally more self-confident.
Laughable wishful thinking…Wishing that the prof in the class that has some 200 - 300 students even recognizes which face belong to which name is already a huge stretch. However, if it makes some pretty people happy, go on, hope for it, the best of luck to you!!!
I have even seen statements that candidates must remove their shoes before walking in, so that possibly distinctive noises between men’s and women’s dress shoes will not be heard by the evaluators on the other side of the screen.
Yeah, I can confirm! I have a 4.0!
Does the Pythagorean Theorem work better for hot chicks?
No Comment from granny!
“Does the Pythagorean Theorem work better for hot chicks?”
A girl once showed me her hypotenuse. Does that count?
My very attractive D has had no trouble finding mentors (male) at her college.
Interesting story about a female, prof – the students send in photos once they agree to attend, and those are attached to their record. We weren’t sure what it would be used for, but we had the electronic copy with rights to the senior photo we call the “supermodel shot”, so we sent that one. My D went to meet with a prof at 8 am on a Monday morning her first semester, and the female prof insisted that my D was NOT the student in the photo with her record. That morning D was wearing glasses instead of contacts, hair in a messy pony tail, no makeup, had been up til 2 am working problem sets, and was wearing sweats… she had to convince the prof that she was indeed the same person (produced her driver’s license to do so). She said the prof didn’t really seem to buy it, and never warmed up to her the whole semester. Was that about the amazing looking photo? No way to tell for sure… but I think it probably was.
I looked at the original link, and note that there is no control for students flirting their way to higher grades. I am sure many attractive students do use their looks to their advantage – even my D who went to college with almost no flirting skills has discovered that it is useful to be pretty in the STEM world. Not sure if she is actually increasing her grades with it, but I am guessing that a socially adept attractive student definitely could. Just saying that it may not be as cut and dried as prof sees good looking student ==> increases grade. Could include “good looking student seeks out face-time with prof or TA to leverage good looks” as well.
I can see how the more attractive females would have better grades without any bias on the part of the instructor.
I think most of us agree that women are judged more on their looks than men, not only by men, but also by other woman. I suspect really unattractive women have far fewer pleasant interactions with other students before and after class. So everyone else is networking while they are just sitting there. Now maybe all the networking does is make the class more enjoyable. If they enjoy it, they are less likely to skip, etc. Or maybe they meet more people who they can call for information or help, or even form a pre-test study group with.
Just a thought.
“Does the Pythagorean Theorem work better for hot chicks?” - Why this simple geometry theorem for 13 y o is evven mentioned on CC? This thread a joke,
I have read articles on the problems with mentorship for attractive females in the business world, and I know I have read at least one dealing with academia. In the age of increased vigilance regarding issues of sexual harassment at universities and workplaces. this can be a result of mentors avoiding judgmental perceptions, rather than actual misbehavior. But I also know from personal experiences recounted by others that actual inappropriate behavior on the part of potential male mentors can be a big problem.
If it did apply to male students, I’d be in serious trouble in undergrad/grad school as opposed to what’s actually on my transcripts.
One experiment an exceedingly intrepid(…and certainly foolhardy) undergrad to prove this one way or another…turn in A+ level written work/exams and in-class comments while coming into class wearing clothing resembling a burlap/canvas bag, not shower for months, speak in a non-confident sounding annoyingly loud high pitched voice…especially if male, and eat foods with a real memorable odor in class.*
See if despite subjecting Prof and class to all of that the undergrad in question can still pull off getting an A/A+ as the final grade despite the Prof’s desire to do otherwise. Bonus points if the Prof’s personal ethical/moral code compels him/her to provide an outstanding academic LOR despite all that. 
- I've had several classmates who did precisely that in a few classes...especially one dealing with Environmental History of the US. A certain special program dorm known for being populated with neo-hippies was notorious for this....and most of us made it a point to take a long detour on warm/hot days to avoid the stench.
** Chili, curry, stinky tofu, durians, etc would work great for this experiment.
However, this may cross the line from being merely unattractive to actively offensive to many people. One can ignore someone’s unattractiveness, but it is far more difficult to ignore what one considers an offensive smell.
(An analogous example at work in a “professional office environment” would be someone who uses excessive amounts of perfume.)
It would mainly be the last two that have the greatest potential for being offensive. The reaction to smelling the first two may be more likely to be “may I try some?”. 
@cobrat, Oberlin, right? Really not an experimental environment that would replicate to most other colleges. Your described “experiment” wouldn’t surprise me much there.
Ok, so there’s a HUGE difference between a beautiful woman and an attractive woman.
How attractive you are is how much effort you put into your appearance, and thus you have a lot of control over it.
So I can absolutely see other humans responding better to a well put together female who is at a healthy weight, with well manicured fingernails, polished makeup and hair, and a thoughtful and chic outfit versus someone who looks like they just fell out of bed and doesn’t give a crap.
I’ve seen beautiful women with fuzzy teeth and appalling personal grooming, and trust me, they’re not attractive. You may be born beautiful, but becoming an attractive adult takes a lot of work!
Is it a myth or not: It is rumored several years ago that, among the Ivies, Brown tends to have the most attractive students. It was also rumored at that time that Brown asked for the picture of every applicant.
It is also rumored that Cornell is also an ivy which tends to have more attractive students.
None of these could be proven though.
I thought an interesting thing about the study was that they controlled by looking at grades in online classes, where appearance made no difference in grades. I thought that was a good way of controlling for something like confidence.