Does W&M discriminate against girls?

Colleges and Universities A-Z College of William and Mary
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<p>While I hesitate to enter the fray on this one, I’ll venture an answer to novaparent’s challenge re: an alternative hypothesis. There is one that occurs to me; some of this discussion has danced around it, but I don’t think it has been explicitly articulated.</p>

<p>Seems we agree that a higher proportion of men are accepted, but are missing data regarding how their grade/score distributions compare to those of women applicants. Some of this discussion has posited that more weak women apply; that seems to be an unpopular theory, and I don’t buy it. William and Mary has the reputation of being academically challenging so weaker students, male and female, would tend to focus on other state schools which they perceive may be easier to get in and get through.</p>

<p>My suggestion is that Wm and Mary may be attracting men who, on average, have HIGHER scores and grades. Examples would be serious male students who are less interested in the big time sports at UVA, much less Tech, JMU, and Mason which tend to be easier to get in (yes, some of this is changing, but that’s another discussion). If, in fact, the male applicants tend to have higher grades/scores, that could explain the discrepancy.</p>

<p>As a statistician, I don’t particularly care for anecdotal evidence, but will say that this hypothesis is consistent with what happened at my D’s NOVA school (Catholic) two years ago. Of the 4 boys in the top ten of the class, 3 applied to William and Mary (and got in and, in fact, attended.) Most of the 6 girls got in but of them (only my D matriculated.) So the other 6 students from her class who attended Wm and Mary, all girls, had lower GPAs and, from what we know, lower test scores on average. We don’t know definitively how many students below the top 10 applied, but I didn’t talk to any parents of men below the top 10 who claim to have applied.</p>

<p>So, at least for her HS class, the hypothesis that men with higher GPAs/score apply is consistent with this theory–from what we know, all of the men who applied were among the top in the class, while the women were drawn from a wider group.</p>

<p>As a Va taxpayer, I would be concerned were a strong and consistent bias in favor of admitting “less qualified” males at a higher rate than females proven. On the other hand…I picked up my D, newly diagnosed with H1N1, today so she could be home for the couple of days before she is allowed to return to class. I described this thread and discussion to her, and she was clear…she would not have been nearly as interested in Wm and Mary had the ratio been much more skewed. Since the College is good for her and I think she is good for the College, perhaps everything balances out in the end.</p>

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I apologize for my lack of clarity. Many others have made much better posts recently, so I shall bow out of this one.</p>

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<p>You are judging the quality of the male and female admitted students based only on the NUMBER of male and female applicants. So I am wondering if we change the NUMBER of male applicants, that the male applicants who are admitted become better. I don’t think you can prove that this is the case.</p>

<p>I don’t understand why you are so against the idea that the top 2000 male applicants and the top 2000 female applicants are equal in the current applicant pool.</p>

<p>You would have better luck complaining that W&M lets in female athletes that score 140 points lower on their SATs than the school average, and male athletes that score 200 points lower.</p>

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<p>W&M does not have any quotas other than 65% of its undergraduate population must be in-state and 65% out-of-state. As a selective public university it’s in a tricky spot of not only needing to be representative of the Commonwealth but also having more qualified applicants that spaces. W&M couldn’t take students just from NOVA or just from Richmond and call itself public. It also couldn’t take just men or just women and call itself public. Therefore, a holistic review is its best chance at admitting the most qualified applicants from all areas and from each gender.</p>

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<p>Two years ago, I attended a discussion panel consisting of the deans of Admission from UVa, UNC, Duke and W&M. I asked whether they considered gender in admissions. The first three said no, adding that their numbers usually gelled to somewhere in the 57 percent girl/43 percent boy range. </p>

<p>Henry Broaddus, of W&M said “We have found that the student body at William & Mary is happier the closer we get to 50-50.” Is this discrimination?</p>

<p>No.</p>

<p>Is it a quota system?</p>

<p>No.</p>

<p>And here’s my reasoning: My younger son, a high schooler is into theater. Every time he attends an audition – for a workshop, a play with a set number of roles, etc. – there are WAY more girls auditioning than boys. He usually winds up with a pretty good part and the BULK of the girls go home.</p>

<p>Is this discrimination? No. There are simply more girls applying than boys for specific roles, similar to an admissions office “building a class.” Does that mean my son is less talented than the girls there? I don’t think so. The director has picked the girls best suited for the play and the boys best suited for the play.</p>

<p>I guess Novamom would prefer it if William and Mary did more to boost its application rates among boys so that more boys were applying and it would even out the admit rates?</p>

<p>Anyway. I used to get really worked up about the “my kids are never going to get into school because they are from NoVa,” but the truth is, my husband and I chose to live here, knowing full well that our boys would be challenged and would have the time of their lives with all the opportunities of living a mile from Washington D.C. We knew when we moved here from out of state that it might put them at a disadvantage for attending the school where their mother, father and grandfather went. But what’s done is done. Why worry at this point? My son is a senior. He’s worked hard and done the best he can. Being from NoVa has made him take risks, push himself, do internships and embrace activities he may never have considered. It’s been a great ride. Not perfect. Like many boys, it’s been an uphill climb toward the mesa of the steady, high GPA that many girls occupy from the get-go. But some college – some very good college, I think – will want him. It may be W&M or UVa. Or it may be a private school. </p>

<p>NovaMom may think that I’d be humming a different tune if I had daughters, but the truth is, all of our children have obstacles in their way. I clearly know the ones that stand in my sons’ way, but at this point in time, I can continue guiding them with the hopes that they’ll land in a place where they are happy, they develop a passion for their studies and they make lifelong friends.</p>

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<p>@smdur1970: Thanks for the thought-provoking post. I tried to think of implications for the naviance data I can access. The scattergrams are not divided by sex, but I speculated that perhaps the boys you identified who are not applying have lower GPAs but not necessarily lower SATs. That is, they may be as bright on average but not as dedicated. Alas, when I looked at the data from one school, the UVa admits had a higher average GPA by .06 but W&M had a higher average SAT (1600) by 20 points. (The sample sizes are around 80 but I do not have the stomach to estimate standard deviations.) Obviously, this is the data for admits not applicants, it is just one school, and there are many other factors that are not being controlled. But, as of now, I was not able to come up with supporting evidence. </p>

<p>The one thing that gives me pause is the general character of the scattegrams. I have posted before that the UVa scattergram seems very regular but W&M does not. (For those who have not seen the scattergrams, they plot SAT on the horizontal axis and GPA on the vertical. Admits show up as green squares while non-admits show up as a red X.) If you fit a curve to the UVa data in an attempt to separate the admits from the non-admits, there would be very few observations on the wrong side of the curve (i.e., admits below or non-admits above). At W&M, there would be. My previous hypothesis was that W&M just puts a lot of weight on other dimensions (essays, letters of recommendation, etc.) But there is another hypothesis that is consistent: There could be lots of female non-admits above the curve and male admits below.</p>

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<p>I’m grateful that W&M Admissions has finally chimed in. His (or her) comment ends the first half of our debate, at least. It confirms, as I’ve been saying all along, that William & Mary takes gender into account as part of a “holistic” admissions process designed to arrive at a balanced class. The only remaining question is whether it is FAIR to consider gender as part of the process. W&M Admissions argues that it IS fair because it “couldn’t take just men or just women and call itself public,” but that of course dodges the question. No one, least of all me, is suggesting that no men at all should be admitted, as clearly many men are fully qualified. But similarly qualified women should not be given the shaft, under the guise of holistic admissions, simply because more of them apply. And to dance around the issue by saying, essentially – “it’s not just because they’re women that they’re not getting in, honestly!” – just isn’t supported by numbers showing that, year after year after year, it just so happens that the proprtion of women admitted is not only much lower than men, it’s consistently lower each year to almost the same exact degree.</p>

<p>In short, like appears to be the case with UNC, U-Va, JMU, and MW, William & Mary owes women a more fair shake.</p>

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<p>Oh, and one more thing. UvaHoo87 says “I guess Novamom would prefer it if William and Mary did more to boost its application rates among boys so that more boys were applying and it would even out the admit rates?” If she’s asking me (I’m a dad and not a mom), the answer is an emphatic YES. That’s exactly what I think the school should be doing. If you want more boys, come up with programs to attract them. Don’t discriminate against the girls.</p>

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<p>The term “discrimination” has a legal meaning as well as an everyday meaning. I am sure that W&M is not guilty of illegal discrimination. But might they be discriminating in the everyday sense of the word? They may well be, according to my dictionary. Many people view discrimination as the act of harming members of a group because of animus, but I find that too circumscribed a definition. When a senior citizen buys a movie ticket for 50% of what you pay, the theater is engaging in price discrimination (charging different people different prices for the same good). The theater owner has nothing against the other patrons, but I still say that he or she is discriminating. When you treat people differently because of some characteristic you are discriminating. </p>

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<p>I do not see this analogy. There are male roles and there are female roles. While there is some scope for females taking male roles, and the total number of actors needed is somewhat variable, the play itself sets the approximate ratio of males to females. A particular male-female ratio may be desirable in a student body, but this is not exogenously given as it is in a play. </p>

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<p>I believe that this issue has caused some of us to rethink our positions. I suspect that some people who have criticized affirmative action programs are now extolling the virtues of a campus that is diverse and representative. Conversely, there are probably longtime supporters of affirmative action who do not see a diverse and representative (by sex) student body as a paramount goal. I know I have learned a few things as I read and thought about these issues, and I thank novaparent for inducing me to waste so much time on it :)</p>

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<p>I would argue that building a class is somewhat analogous to casting a play. There is a need for volleyball players, debate team members, cellists, students with socially, economic and geographic diverse backgrounds, etc. William & Mary is forthright in saying that an aim of their college is to have a balance of genders. I applaud them for admitting it. </p>

<p>Is it discrimination for VMI, a Virginia state school with conversely more male applicants than females, to accept some females over male applicants because they are trying to boost their numbers of females?</p>

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<p>UvaHoo87,</p>

<p>First, to your point about VMI: show me the money. In 2008 VMI, despite having nearly 10 TIMES as many males apply as females (1440 males versus only 160 females), admitted 53 percent of the males and 57 percent of the females, a much less significant difference than any given year for William and Mary. And going back another year, despite again having nearly ten times as many male applicants, VMI actually admitted a GREATER percentage of males than females! </p>

<p>As I said before, show me ONE state college in America where the disparity is as consistently glaring as it is for William and Mary and I will concede my point.</p>

<p>As for your high school play analogy, it can easily be turned right on its head. I would think most people would agree that, when it comes to high school plays (especially musicals), the girls in the major roles are usually the star performers. Why? They have more competition.</p>

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<p>For some reason, I can’t edit my post, but I did want to add this link to Wendy Livingston’s blog last year that she posted the day early decisions went out.</p>

<p>[William</a> & Mary - It is Not the Most Wonderful Time of the Year](<a href=“http://www.wm.edu/blogs/wmblogs/wendylivingston/it-is-not-the-most-wonderful-time-of-the-year.php]William”>http://www.wm.edu/blogs/wmblogs/wendylivingston/it-is-not-the-most-wonderful-time-of-the-year.php)</p>

<h1>2 is very true. Not just in the college admissions process but life. Isn’t it the oldest adage in the world?</h1>

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<p>Consider the source. “Fair” may not apply to college admissions at William and Mary, but it certainly seems to apply to its state school competitors.</p>

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<p>Now we know why W&M Admissions isn’t chiming in at least:</p>

<p>[The</a> Answer Sheet - Do college admissions officers discriminate against girls?](<a href=“The Washington Post - Breaking news and latest headlines, U.S. news, world news, and video - The Washington Post”>The Washington Post - Breaking news and latest headlines, U.S. news, world news, and video - The Washington Post)</p>

<p>Good luck, all.</p>

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<p>So, the data shows that a higher percentage, relative to applications, of females are admitted and attend than males, even with the entering classes favoring women by about 10%. From what I have seen on here and in the WaPo article, there are the following theories as to why this is:</p>

<p>1) The Cream of the Crop

The Holistic admission process also provides the cushion room to say that the admits are equal. Should admittees be selected based on the number of their gender peers that also applied?</p>

<p>2) Selection Criteria
Who’s to say that, for example, the College can’t place a high value on athletics?</p>

<p>3) Building a Class
W&M sets

And that this balance is desired by those attending and applying. </p>

<p>4) **W&M hates women. **
Which is kind of odd, since W&M was the first Virginia public school to admit women, starting in 1918.</p>

<p>5) Capacity

There are costs to converting dorms, too.</p>

<p>6) Other factors come into play, including enrollment/yield rates, graduation rates, oos vs in state for both of these, geographic factors, etc…</p>

<p>7) Simpson’s Paradox: [Simpson’s</a> paradox - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia<a href=“plays%20into%20theory%20#5%20a%20bit,%20too”>/url</a>

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<p>8) Combination of many of the above.</p>

<p>It may be interesting to note the legal side of this too. See intermediate scrutiny:
[url=<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspect_classification]Suspect”>Suspect classification - Wikipedia]Suspect</a> classification - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“Simpson's paradox - Wikipedia”>Simpson's paradox - Wikipedia)</p>

<p>I hope this helps organize the debate somewhat.</p>

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<p>Maybe they don’t need special programs to recruit more male applicants because they already have enough that are equally as qualified as their female counterparts.</p>

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<p>Once again, this doesn’t prove anything.</p>

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<p>The ratio of males to females is unequal at VMI. Maybe we should change the programs or add to them at VMI to attract more females.</p>

<p>Or maybe we may accept that students self select at times when they choose their schools. This may account for the difference in the number of male and female applicants to any given school.</p>

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<p>SarahBellum, your post is nonsensical. </p>

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<li><p>No one is arguing that VMI should change its program to attract more women. A college can have whatever program it wants so long as that program, if it leads to more applications from one gender than the other, doesn’t discrminate against the gender submitting more applications. As I’ve demonstrated earlier, the available admissions data for VMI suggests that it’s not holding a male’s gender against him even though nearly 10 times more men apply than women.</p></li>
<li><p>There’s no question that William and Mary’s heavily female applicant pool reflects self-selection, but that’s not the issue. The issue is what’s the college doing with the pool that it gets. And, again, the answer is clear: by the college’s own admission, it’s taking gender into account.</p></li>
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<p>As for soccerguy, your comments are inconsistent with William and Mary’s own statements. The college is on record as wanting to to be gender balanced and in wanting to attract more male applicants, and the college is on record about not wanting to get involved in any debate on this issue while the Civil Rights Commission is still investigating. You seem to be taking this very personally, but you need not do that; I’m sure you were fully qualified for admission to William and Mary.</p>

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<p>Here<em>to</em>Help, Simpson’s Paradox is another good suggestion. If a huge number of females apply to the humanities, but few to the sciences, there could be a low admit rate for humanities applicants and a high admit rate for sciences. This could result in a lower overall admit rate for females than males even if males and females have the same admit rate department-by-department. </p>

<p>I just checked the W&M supplement to the Common App to see what it says. While it asks for areas of interest, it claims that this is not taken into account in the admissions process. </p>

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