Generalizing about the gay/straight male situation at Vassar from a conversation with two tour guides seems unwarranted. I think it’s well known that Vassar, like a number of other colleges, has a higher than average gay male population. I think it’s reasonable for a straight female to take this information into account when considering attending a college that isn’t near other institutions where she can socialize, but not so reasonable for a straight male to worry about the sexual preferences of other males on campus.</p>
<p>How in the world is it “well known” that Vassar “like a number of other colleges” has a higher than average gay male population? I know a lot about a bunch of colleges, mostly of the East Coast Establishment variety (like Vassar), and most of which qualifies as folklore, I guess. I have various relatives who went to Vassar or taught there, my kids have numerous friends who went to Vassar. This is the first I have heard that it has a higher than average gay male population. </p>
<p>I don’t believe it, certainly not on your hearsay-so. For all sorts of reasons, it doesn’t seem like a place that would be super-attractive to most gay men. And I have no idea exactly how you know what the “average” for gay men is in the first place, much less where Vassar comes in relation to it.</p>
<p>I agree that it’s reasonable for a straight woman to consider the ratio of women to men at Vassar – and even if it’s not reasonable, it’s predictable that will happen. But I don’t think there’s any reason for her to believe that some higher-than-average percentage of the lower-than-optimal number of men will categorically reject the idea of sex with her.</p>
<p>Vassar is widely known as being friendly to gay men, and attracts a lot of them partly for that reason.</p>
<p>More generally, I do so enjoy it when boosters will quickly agree that the straight male/straight female imbalance is good for the guys, but then deny that it’s bad for the girls.</p>
<p>Name an elitist liberal arts college/university that ISN’T “widely known as being friendly to gay men.” They all are. And lots of them aren’t in Poughkeepsie and have a much wider variety of gay men from which to find partners.</p>
<p>As for your other point, (a) I haven’t read any posts here denying that the ratio could be a negative factor for straight women, and (b) where are you getting your data on the percentage of women at Vassar who are straight? For all we know, there is no imbalance at all between straight men and straight women there.</p>
<p>(Just kidding. I think there is, too. But I love it when people turn their prejudices into facts.)</p>
<p>Also on Vassar’s faq page linked above, is the current sex ratio. Since there are more gay men than lesbian women in the population, the numbers are likely more skewed than this.</p>
<p>latichever, my kids also use the term “hipster” to describe a school but I don’t, as a parent. I was reacting to the words of a parent in the original post, which seemed unusually demeaning both to son and to LAC’s in a way I would not expect from an adult.</p>
<p>No, I really wasn’t being demeaning to my kid – who I think is terrific. </p>
<p>Maybe it’s a southern thing that we still use the term ‘artsy-fartsy’ – he goes to an arts high school so it seems to apply. Never thought that ‘crunchy’ was a negative term either. </p>
<p>From my perspective, this weekend was the first time that my child got college brochures in the mail and came in waving one at me and saying “Look, this one seems like it might be for me.” (It was Bennington and we both laughed at the slogan “Where would you be if you were at the center of everything?” He made some joke about how he’s narcissistic and self-involved and so this is clearly the school for him, though the thought of one thousand narcissistic, self-involved people coming together in the woods in Vermont was a bit overwhelming – but honestly I think what he’s reacting to is the idea that there are schools where you can go and figure out who you are, rather than having a school claiming to mold you or shape you or turn you into someone who cheers for a particular football team. We’ve been getting mail from southern schools that send you baseball caps and tell you that you really should come down and watch the game – and we are probably the least athletic family on the face of the earth, so we were honestly quite thrilled to hear from a few schools which have a radically different approach. I chose the term ‘crunchy LAC’ to describe places like that – Hampshire, Bennington and Bard came to mind. Oberlin. Reed if we could afford it, which we can’t. Places like that.) As far as the statistics about gay people there, I was just curious about where that perception came from – I grew up in upstate New York and hadn’t thought of it as a particularly openminded liberal place. I found it surprising, that’s all, and wondered if it was true or if it was just one of those weird stereotypes. (I went to a women’s college and there are lots of weird stereotypes about women’s colleges that aren’t true, for example).</p>
<p>You can get some sense of social dynamics on different college campuses by reading what the students themselves have to say about it on sites like college ******* dot com, students review dot com, etc. They’ve got different categories ‘rated’ – guys / girls are one of them. It does give some sense of the ‘vibe’ on different campuses, but of course it’s from a small subset of the student population, so may be skewed one way or the other. . .</p>
<p>well, the word that got *'d out was ‘p r o w l e r’ for pete’s sake !</p>
<p>Momzie, I can’t speak about upstate New York, but college campuses are sometimes worlds unto themselves. My D’s gay-friendly, alternative, crunchy (I’m not offended ;)) LAC is located in semi-rural Indiana, not exactly a bastion of progressivism. You never know.</p>
<p>When we were looking at colleges for S#2 and we visited James Madison U, the female to male ratio approaching 70/30 was very noticeable in the cafeteria. I didn’t think it would be a healthy environment for our son, but it didn’t seem to bother him.</p>
<p>I dont know if he is interested in any technical degree, but Colorado School of Mines is a 75% male, 25% female ratio.</p>
<p>I will say that the whole ratio thing factored in to my college decision. No-it was not for dating reasons or anything like that (I am in a happy relationship), but because it has always been easier for me to be friends with guys than girls.</p>
<p>My school is 69% female. The second biggest program at the school is teacher prep (the business school has just recently passed the education department’s numbers). That kinda makes it seem reasonable. There is an all male college right down the road so the gender balance is actually not all that bad in town. And it doesn’t actually seem like the school is full of girls. But you get the background in it having been an all female school until 1976 when you pass the clock that reminds you they started four sororities here. </p>
<p>Fun story, my freshmen extended orientation class thing has Peer Mentors who are pretty much students (typically Juniors) who co-instruct the course. The one for my course is from New Jersey and saw our school at a college fair. He thought he’d be a doofus and go around asking every college their gender ratio. After hearing the stat of 70% female for that year, he started looking into it. And that’s how he ended up here.</p>