<p>does being a low income, in state, male help or hurt your chances? or neither?</p>
<p>I would say it helps.</p>
<p>But I have no information that backs that up.</p>
<p>Being male and in-state helps a lot. Also, William and Mary has a special program, Gateway, for kids whose families earn less than $40,000 a year. Whether that helps you get in I don't know, but at least once you're in, you'll get financial support: <a href="http://www.wm.edu/gateway%5B/url%5D">www.wm.edu/gateway</a></p>
<p>is the number of boys and girls applying to W&M so uneven that being male helps a lot? because it looks like the school is only 55% girls (according to princetonreview.com) so it seems relatively even... do they have to reject a large number of girls that apply and accept a large number of males that apply to maintain this ratio?</p>
<p>Yes, far more girls apply to W&M.</p>
<p>To put some numbers on it, WM accepts 40% of males and 26% of females, according to the most recent numbers in their Common Dataset. So yes, being male is a BIG plus.</p>
<p>This is true, from what I've read. ^^^But I don't know how a public college can do that. It's discriminatory, unless the male applicant pool is so much stronger.</p>
<p>It's not discriminatory, and on that note, acceptance rates really don't mean much at all</p>
<p>If males are consistently getting in with lower GPAs and SAT scores, as appears to be happening, that would be discriminatory, especially considering that W&M is a public college with a mandate to serve the people of Virginia.</p>
<p>Well first of all no, because it fails what is known in common law as the rational basis test, meaning that there is a reasonable explanation for it if there was discrimination in the first place, which there is not. End of story. </p>
<p>Second of all, you can neither effectively qual. or quantatively compare two applicants in a successful manner</p>
<p>I don't believe there is any evidence that shows the males who are admitted are weaker applicants than the females who are admitted.</p>
<p>^^^ Do you have numbers that back up your assertion?</p>
<p>I don't know if you can find better numbers, but this is what I had previously read and was bassing my statement on: (slightly dated, from 2003)</p>
<p>
[quote]
At Virginia's prestigious College of William & Mary, 42% of male applicants were accepted last year, compared with 32% of female applicants. Karen Cottrell, associate provost for enrollment, says boys' applications don't receive preferential treatment. Girls typically have better high school transcripts, which count most heavily in admissions decisions. But she says male applicants' average SAT scores are higher: 1,347, compared with 1,323 for women.
[/quote]