<p>Some interesting facts and figures about the Class of 2010.</p>
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<p>well.. women applicants are ~60% of the pool and men are ~40%
if brown takes the same % from each pool, there will be way more women than men (assuming that the yields for the genders aren't too much off)
brown wants to keep the population balanced, so they accept more male applicants. and it's doing a good job--730:745</p>
<p>That doesn't necessarily mean that there's affirmative action -- it may be (and I don't know this -- just saying it's possible) that male applicants were stronger on average and were therefore admitted at a higher rate. Also, as the author of the article says, Brown has recently been emphasizing science fields, which attract (and yield) more men.</p>
<p>Also, as much personal respect as I have for Jason Carr (he was a unitmate of mine and a very smart and thoughtful guy) I wouldn't quote the Brown Spectator as a source for anything regarding AA.</p>
<p>What apparently can't be denied, however, are the statistics - which speak for themselves, unless you believe the author or his publication have falsified them (they haven't).</p>
<p>The bottom line: While 61% of applicants were female and only 39% were male for the Class of 2010, males were admitted at a substantially higher rate. Whether you call this "affirmative action" or call it something else, its clear that, statistically, its a lot easier for a male applicant to get into Brown than it is for a female applicant.</p>
<p>The opposite situation exists at MIT, where male applicants substantially outnumber females, and the admit rate for females is substantially higher.</p>
<p>It is perfectly understandable that Brown (as many schools) prefers to seek rough gender parity in the undergrad student body. And it is also well known that the college applicant group, nationally, is skewing female.</p>
<p>However, the degree to which one gender or the other is admitted at a higher rate in order to obtain "parity" - or something close to it - raises interesting questions. </p>
<p>The issue is more significant at Brown than at other Ivies, since its applicant group, currently, has the greatest imbalance.</p>
<p>Statistics don't show if it was easier to get in, just that more males did percentage wise. Since this doesn't show that the "statistics" of males who were accepted to Brown were significantly lower/worse than the "statistics" of the female applicants who were accepted (assuming statistics is an accurate measure of such things), one cannot definitively say that less qualified males were accepted in order to ensure a balance.</p>
<p>Personally, I don't give a **** if they're beginning to favor males or not, but "statistics" here don't really show much other than the fact that there are more male applicants and a higher acceptance rate for them. This does not mean it is easier to get into.</p>
<p>Thank you, modestmelody. Byerly, did you even read my post?</p>
<p>I don't think these implications that, well, maybe the men are simply a lot smarter than the women at Brown these days (vs., say, MIT, where the opposite may be true) can be credited. Brown didn't suddenly start getting 20% fewer, but 20% smarter, men in its applicant pool, and 20% more, but 20% dumber, females, as a proportion of the whole. Such speculation strains credulity.</p>
<p>Well, considering Brown started pushing hard sciences more over the last decade or so may lead precisely to that situation. Not that this is sudden, but that this spread has been occurring for quite sometime. Combine that with the fact that more people are applying to college and particularly here, this does not mean that more people are applying who are all equally qualified to be here. How many of these extra people applying are applying but are completely unqualified? How many are very much "on the fence"? How many are definitely qualified and should have a spot here and would have earned that spot in any year they apply? I have no idea what the answer is. BUt having an increase in the number of applicants does not mean having an increase in the number of qualified applicants, IMO, and having shifted focus towards "recruiting" or attempting to create classes more serious about the hard sciences may attract intelligent males at a higher rate than intelligent females, etc etc.</p>
<p>I just am not ready to jump to conclusions, though I don't care either way.</p>
<p>Also, the Spectator has like 3 legit articles, but I still wouldn't take it as much of a source.</p>
<p>The stats don't seem to support your theory, as the fraction of the class interested in the sciences has remained virtually the same in the last five years, even as the female fraction of the applicant pool has grown substantially and the admit rate edge for male over female applicants has widened.</p>
<p>A drop in 7% in the humanities is a pretty decent change.</p>
<p>And yet ... the fraction of the applicant pool that is female has continued to grow. No, it can't be explained away that easily, I'm afraid. It seems to me that the admissions people have taken clear steps to preserve gender balance, insofar as possible, despite an imbalance in the applicant group for which there is, no doubt, an explanation. Nothing wrong with this, perhaps, but a phenomenon that seems to be growing, and that is worth noting.</p>
<p>I agree with you, Byerly, that men are probably getting preferential treatment in the Brown applicant pool. But this is not unique to Brown -- the college population in the US is currently close to 60% female, and most top colleges and universities face majority-female applicant pools (with a few exceptions -- and I'm not sure what that says about these schools!).</p>
<p>You are right that the "problem" (if it is one) is not unique to Brown, and is very likely to grow in the years ahead if demographic projections hold.</p>
<p>Typical of the side effects felt elsewhere - there is a school (which I can't recall ... James Madison, perhaps?) where the inexorable "feminization" of the student body has just forced the school to drop a range of men's sports in order to maintain compliance with Title IX. </p>
<p>(The ratio of male/female varsity athletic opportunities is supposed to maintain a close relationship to the male/female breakdown of the student body as a whole.)</p>
<p>Yup, JMU had to drop basically half their sports program or is in the process of doing so.</p>
<p>Brown was sued (unfairly, I think) a few years ago for violating Title IX. I'm sure they'd like to be sure they won't get drawn into a similar controversy any time soon.</p>
<p>"Affirmative action" as practiced for the past several decades by elite universities typically translates in effect to adding approximately 100 to 150 points to the (old scale) SAT score</p>
<p>Quite wisely most universities do not publicize controversial statistics, however if there is any "affirmative action" for males at Brown - I suspect you will find little if any difference on that scale at least, arguably the most objective comparison available</p>
<p>Why do you suspect that?</p>
<p>I think one must also consider the gender imbalance of the ED pool. It might also be possibly the case that higher proportion of the accepted male students are ED students which explains their higher yield and rate. Since the problem of gender imbalance wasn't brought up during the ED round, I would assume that there are quite balanced ratio between both genders during ED..</p>
<p>While the title of the thread presents an interesting issue, the term "affirmative action" as practiced by elite universities has a rather precise meaning - oddly enough quite different from the original meaning of the term whereby the intent was to simply affirmatively and aggressively reach out into underrepresented communities - where it was believed increased applicants would mean increased accepted students from these targeted communities, as opposed to lowering standards - which is precisely what affirmative action has evolved into</p>
<p>I am unaware of any top universities that have a full disclosure policy of releasing SAT scores by gender, race, legacy vs non-legacy, athletic vs regular admissions, and various combinations</p>
<p>Nor will such information be forthcoming anytime soon.</p>
<p>Males admitted to Brown are unlikely to have benefited from any policy of "affirmative action" under the plain meaning of that word</p>
<p>I'd expect that since girls are on average better students than the boys, that the girls pool is stronger than the boys pool. </p>
<p>The secondary effects that I can think of all point to stronger girls applying to Brown as compared to boys.</p>
<p>The new science emphasis affects who Brown admits, not as much who applies.</p>