<p>I'm looking at a few schools with significantly imbalanced male/female ratios. For example:
William & Mary is roughly 55% female.
St. Mary's (MD) is roughly 60% female.
Mary Washington is roughly 65% female.
Georgia Tech, RIT, WPI, RPI, and Stevens Tech are all around 70% male.
I'm not necessarily considering all of the above schools. If I'm wrong on any of these, I'm sorry for the inaccuracy but the point is that there are some competitive schools with small but significant imbalances (55 to 45) and larger ones (65 to 35 and greater).
I'm male, so I definitely see the immediate positives of being outnumbered nearly 2:1 at Mary Washington [!!!], or the negatives at RPI. I'm not really asking about how hook up culture, dating, or the party scene are at some of these schools in comparison with other, more balanced schools. Instead, I'm wondering how campus culture, social life, and attitude of students is affected by such disparities. Does this effect the concerns, acitivities, and exposures of students? Does the campus vibe reflect the influence of one gender? In what ways are all 50/50 schools different? Is student life any different?
Helpful distinctions would be between larger and smaller schools and those with greater and lesser imbalances. For example, I suspect that St. Mary’s, with its population of 1900, has a more pronounced effect than can be seen on Georgia Tech’s 15000 undergrads. I wouldn't be too surprised if a 55/45 isn't noticeable (even at smaller schools), but there has to be some product of a 60/40 that gets more extreme with a greater imbalance. Because this is a subjective matter, I would appreciate views of students at these sorts of schools that have experienced this firsthand. Although I’m essentially asking for it, please don’t defend your alma mater or child’s school for the school’s sake; I only want to know whether I should be considering this as a factor in school selection. </p>