<p>I apologize if there is already a thread elsewhere about this -- and if so, please point me to it! I wondered if any parents wanted to weigh in on the subject of colleges that skew heavily one way or another -- not women's colleges or Hampden-Sydney or a military academy, necessarily -- but schools where the female/male ratio is 70/30 or something like that. I have a son who is very artsy-fartsy and if he doesn't attend a conservatory, then we're looking at crunchy, artsy LAC's. </p>
<p>We hadn't thought much about the gender thing but we've bumped up against it in a couple of ways lately. That new novel by the admissions counselor has a character who tells his dad he's going to Vassar and the dad immediately assumes the kid has just come out as gay. I guess the implication is that straight guys don't go there? And last night when we were looking at youtube videos about Bennington online, we noticed that practically all the people in the videos were female. </p>
<p>I wondered if anybody had looked at schools like this with either a son or a daughter, and if gender ratios had factored into decisions about which school to attend. Does it matter? How does it actually change the dynamic on campus?</p>
<p>We liked that Vassar’s ratio meant it was easier for my son to get into. I don’t know why gay guys would prefer a school with fewer males than average. American is another school where guys may get a bit of a boost - 60/40 F/M. I think it has a pretty good art department, but we were looking at it because of the location, internship possibilities and strong international relations department.</p>
<p>Straight guys have a lot of fun at Vassar. I know a lot of men who have gone there, from the first class of men until the most recent one, and all of them (the ones I know, not everyone at Vassar of course) have been straight as an arrow. </p>
<p>I think the stereotype arose because the very first classes of men accepted there had a few very vocal and, um, flamboyant men who had gender dysphoria issues and were interested in Vassar not so much because they were gay as because they wanted to be female, and going to a women’s college looked like a step in the right direction. </p>
<p>That was 45 years ago. It’s a long time since Vassar was a women’s college. Now it’s just kind of like Jan and Dean’s fantasy of Surf City: “two girls for every boy”.</p>
<p>Stevens Institute - 75% male / 25% female - if you are a women with engineering interests they will give you great merit to get you to attend. I would think some of the other tech schools have similar ratios.</p>
<p>My oldest son’s school was 70% boys, 30% girls but since he started in 2007 they have evened it out and I think it’s closer to 60/40 guys to girls now. It was a rural outdoorsy college and I can see the attraction for the guys. The girls that are there can out-ski, out-climb and out-hike the guys but the few girls I met were great girls and I’m guessing they don’t mind the ratio one little bit. ! Not to many couch potatoes there of either sex. My son never seemed to mind the ratio difference.</p>
<p>My daughter did not like that Vasaar was mostly female. But you have to know your kid. My daughter has always had mostly male friends (I joke that she hates girls) and so after the visit she ruled it out.</p>
<p>Several years ago I read an article that claimed the high female:male ratio at many LACs had the effect of increasing promiscuity among the women. The theory was that increased competition for males led to less selective behavior on the part of the females. I’m not sure things are any different at other campuses, but it was an interesting theory.</p>
<p>Conversely, there are programs where females are hugely underrepresented and yet I don’t see anyone advising a girl not to go into computer science because it will be majority male.</p>
<p>I’m deeply skeptical, based on what I’ve heard about my daughter’s LAC. Most of the women there are pretty serious about their academic work, to the point that “competing for males” is a pretty low priority for them during their college years. And similarly on the male side, there are many who do not regard coupling up during college as a high priority, and so are effectively unavailable. This doesn’t mean they lack social lives, it’s just that dating and sexual relationships are not especially high priorities for many of them. Also, if you subtract from the pool all the men and women who are already in relationships with hometown sweethearts or with students at other colleges, or are gay/lesbian, or are already coupled up with a member of the opposite sex on campus, the pool of eligible straight males is so small (and to hear the women tell it, the “leftover” males so unappealing) that most of the limited number of women who are actively shopping for male partners feel their prospects are much better off-campus, e.g., at other nearby colleges. It’s always easy enough to round up a friend or two to hit one or more parties at another college–though of course that may be different if the school is geographically isolated, as some LACs are.</p>
<p>Bottom line, I just don’t think there are very many women at my daughter’s LAC who are “competing for males” at any given time, and most of those who are do not confine their search to the four walls of their tiny campus.</p>
<p>The most imbalanced ratios in favor of men usually occur at tech schools or military schools. For example, SUNY Maritime is ~90% male, and Polytechnic Institute of NY is ~80% male. Tech majors within colleges tend to have a similar disproportionate ratio. In many fields of engineering (computer, electrical, mechanical, aerospace, mining, …), less than 15% of degrees are awarded to women . Some of the selective tech colleges create a more balanced ratio by treating women as a underrepresented group. </p>
<p>The most imbalanced ratios in favor of women tend to occur at colleges that were historically all-female, LACs without significant engineering, or colleges that emphasize female dominated industries. For example, SUNY Fashion Institute is ~85% female, and Sarah Lawrence is more than 70% female. I’d expect some of the more selective LACs to create a balanced ratio by treating males as an underrepresented group.</p>
<p>American U. in DC has one of the highest female-male ratios that I know of, for a major eastern university.</p>
<p>One whole wall of their gym is full of championship banners won by their female teams. The opposite wall had the men’s championship - I think there was one 5 years ago for table tennis.</p>
<p>The “hook up” culture has been a topic for all campuses, so it might have nothing to do with gender ratios, though that’s the argument the article is trying to put forth.</p>
<p>My niece graduated from U of Mary Washington around 7 years ago and was unhappy with the 65/35 female/male ratio. She felt that the men on campus acted like they were entitled to be jerks because women were competing for them.</p>
<p>All the techs and Polytechs have many more men than women:
Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute: 71% male/29% female
Rochester Institute of Technology: 68/32
Worcester Polytechnic Institute: 69/31
Georgia Tech: 68/32
Cal Tech: 61/39</p>
<p>Not true of all the STEM colleges, though. Harvey Mudd has worked hard to balance out their ratio. I think the dean of students said the incoming class this fall was something like 47% women.</p>
<p>For my S, at RIT, the ratio did not matter at all. I don’t think he would have cared if it was all male. For my D’s, the ratios did matter and they sought to be closer to even, or at least not far beyond 55/45. I don’t think it was for dating purposes, more for a general balance in classes and discussions.</p>
<p>I believe RIT is 68% male for undergrad and slightly better for grad. The only tech school I’m aware of that’s close to balanced is MIT, with a 55/45 ratio for undergrad. However, they take steps to create that ratio. For example, among Parchment members whose stats are in the upper half of the MIT class , the acceptance rate is 2.3x higher among female apps than male apps… roughly the same ratio as URM vs non-URM with similar stats (at MIT). Tech colleges that admit nearly all apps are often ~80% male.</p>