<p>Thank you for your compliments Linda. They are very flattering considering the fact that I was admitted to William and Mary and can't spell. When I reread my own posts, I cringe. </p>
<p>I thought that most knew that I was only a student at William and Mary. Indeed, many of my threads say just that. Please go back and read some of them. I have never worked in an admissions office and have no desire to. I am currently a graduation candidate in the Mason School of Business at The College of William and Mary. I came on College Confidential when I was just a high school senior very afraid that I would not get into my dream college. I love William and Mary and feel very protective of this wonderful school. I think that, more than anything accounts for the times I have been defensive or arrogant. It has never been my intention to offend anyone and I am truly sorry if I have. </p>
<p>When generalized comments are made to sound like fact, that admitted William and Mary males are somehow less qualified because of their gender..........well those of us who worked very hard to gain and maintain their admissions feel slighted. There was nothing easy about my high school years. To do well at William and Mary (which I have done) has not been easy either. Some of the comments made have been hurtful to the males who are students here.........who have tried to offer help on CC. I have answered many, many PM questions from both males and females desiring additional info about the business school. I have met students from this thread on campus and showed them around. I feel that I have helped promote William and Mary.</p>
<p>I don't like being disrespectful to adults, so I am sorry for that LInda.</p>
<p>I never really jumped into parent 2009's point re boys vs girls other than to comment on why so few boys are interested in applying to W & M. Do you know why?</p>
<p>That's why my older son didn't apply, plus he heard through the high school grapevine that W&M was a lot tougher to get high grades than UVA (which is where he ended up!)</p>
<p>Just so we are clear, I've never suggested that less qualified men are being admitted to William and Mary because of their gender, only that equally qualified women are being denied admission because of theirs. As I demonstrated in my prior post, the numbers speak for themselves: William and Mary is hardly alone among the best state colleges in America and its chief public school competitors (U-Va, JMU, Mary Washington, and UNC) in getting many more applications from women than men, yet William and Mary DOES stand alone among these schools in denying admission to women applicants highly disproportionately to men. You don't need to take my word for it; all the numbers for each of the colleges are readily available on line. </p>
<p>It's nice that ped sox is smart, proud of, and happy with his college choice, but that's not the issue. The issue is whether anyone can offer an intelligent alternative explanation for the numbers that makes sense (note to ped sox: taking personal shots at a poster who has been nothing but respectful doesn't qualify).</p>
<p>No one addressed my argument that maybe W&M knows that most of the women admitted will attend, so they admit fewer of them. Other schools might admit more women knowing that many of them will choose other schools.</p>
<p>never said they were, just trying to explain your "statistics". They aren't always what they seem.</p>
<p>Of course JMU and VT would admit a higher percentage, it's a safety school for most people, especially bright, high-GPA girls. Then if they get into UVA or W&M, they turn down JMU's offer.</p>
<p>It's the actual number attending out of the accepted applicants that is important, not the number of people admitted.</p>
<p>Schools back into acceptance numbers, they know they want the class to be a certain size and certain percentage of male vs female. They admit the percentage of each sex that yields the class they want, based on historical statistics.</p>
<p>Neither U-Va nor UNC are safety schools for William and Mary, nor are the vast majority of the other top 20 public colleges on the U.S. News list, all of which, except for William and Mary, admit applicants by gender in roughly equal proportion to number of applications received. In fact, as I said before, U-Va gets more women applicants than men AND accepts a higher percentage of them, which is less surprising than what you're seeing at William and Mary considering that most of the data shows that girls generally do better in high school than boys. </p>
<p>The U.S. News article (which I've seen before) is certainly insightful in identifying the causes of the problem. Note, though, that except for William and Mary the schools discussed in the article are private. As a state institution, William and Mary has less legal leeway to take gender into account in assembling its freshmen classes.</p>
<p>welcome back parent2009; I have been taking the heat for your opinions from pedsox.</p>
<p>I don't know that there is anything inherently wrong with having a state school be favored by girls. It's sort of quaint, as is the town of Williamsburg. It is not the school's fault that fewer boys apply. There is probably a VERY GOOD reason that would explain it, but no one thus far has offered it up.</p>
<p>I am telling you, it's big time sports. IMO, anyway.</p>
<p>Plus W&M had a reputation of being tougher than most schools of its caliber.</p>
<p>Girls are more mature, in general, and see past those two items, and realize how good an education they can get at W&M.</p>
<p>It's tough being a girl now, but there are plenty of great schools any really well qualified girl has a good chance of getting into.</p>
<p>I believe a policy decision has been made at many schools to try to maintain at no more than 60/40 girls/boys. Since there aren't as many college bound boys as girls, the acceptance for boys is a little easier. </p>
<p>It wasn't too long ago that the opposite was true, remember when UVA, Tech and others were all male? W&M has been coed a lot longer than the others.</p>
<p>This isn't the complete set of numbers, of course, but I think you can see that W&M enrolls the most balanced class in terms of m/f ratio. And it would appear that females have a more difficult time being admitted due to more competition for fewer slots (which doesn't mean that unqualified guys are being accepted - given the nature of the coursework at a school like W&M, you really don't do an unqualified student any favors by allowing them to attend.) You can also see that of the three schools, a male that applies to W&M is more likely to enroll than at other schools. </p>
<p>As for why women apply to W&M in larger numbers, percentage-wise than males - I think a large part of it simply the difference in male/female college attendance. Part of it will also be due to the self-selecting nature of college applications; if you look at the top 10 percent of high-school seniors, I think you'll find a majority these days are female. </p>
<p>And of course, there's a vast difference between what a 18-year-old male thinks is important vs. what a 18-year-old female does. For example, I think you'll find a decided lack of "How hot are the girlz?" threads in the W&M board ... :)</p>
<p>Pedsox - if you were representative of the student body at WM in any way, then I would definitely be turned off of WM. Thankfully, I know you're just a troll.</p>
<p>squiddy those stats don't tell much unless female stats accompany it. The stats only say that 36% admitted are boys. However, if you look the stats below you can see that higher percentage of males are beings admitted. </p>
<p>Proportion of freshman enrolled from early action and early decision: 33%
Male applicants: 3,812
Male acceptances: 1,671
Male freshman enrollment: 652</p>
<p>Welcome to the debate, squiddy. You're exactly right that William and Mary miraculously manages to enroll a relatively balanced class in the face of starkly imbalanced applications -- precisely because they're only admitting 26 percent of the girls and 41 percent of the boys. I also think (if I'm reading your numbers right) that it's pretty telling that admitted boys are enrolling at higher rates than admitted girls. It tells me that admitted girls are better qualified, getting more offers at other top schools than admitted boys, and are thus more often choosing to go elsewhere.</p>
<p>Why would the girls at William and mary be unique in that regard? What's the likelihood that William and Mary girl applicants are applying to more schools on average than girls applying to UNC, JMU, UVA, Mary Washington, or any other of the top 20 public colleges as listed by U.S. News?</p>
<p>Not sure, I am just throwing out random weird thoughts. I always wondered why girls applied to so many schools, I guess.</p>
<p>I just get a little defensive about my son who was one of those lucky boys who got into W&M, he was number 5 in a class of 500, had 2130 SAT's, 5's on 4 AP tests, etc. He wanted to go to W&M, and applied elsewhere just in case he didn't get in.</p>
<p>It's pretty simple, supply and demand. The state wants relative parity between the sexes, so the number of slots is preset for each sex. Complaining, whining, and trying to figure out why is an exercise in futility.</p>
<p>Not all girls apply to ten schools, and not all boys apply to three. In any event, no one, least of all me, is suggesting that your son is unqualified. The point is that equally qualified girls might be being denied.</p>