<p>
</p>
<p>Sorry if I’m coming across as taking it personally. I just have tried to look at this from multiple directions and do not see why just because there are more female applicants, that there should be more females accepted. If this year, there are 8000 female and 8000 male applicants, I would expect the class of admitted students to look the same in raw numbers as it does now, the only thing that would change is the percentage accepted.</p>
<p>[The</a> Answer Sheet - Gender and College Admissions: William and Mary Dean Talks Back](<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>
</p>
<p>I’m pleased that the dean has decided to speak out on this issue. This has obviously been a productive thread. But, Hope<em>to</em>Help, you are cherry-picking from his statement. What the dean is really saying, and the data that you cite supports it, is that whether deliberate or not William and Mary is in fact applying different standards for boys than girls. To me, this is his most telling quote:</p>
<p>“But we might suspect that our holistic, individual review rewards what can appear to a reader as untapped potential in certain young men even as the same process discounts what appears to be stronger achievement in the classroom by young women.”</p>
<p>This – rewarding potential by boys at the expense of actual achievement by girls – is what’s going on, and I submit that the only reason it’s going on is because William and Mary gets many more applications from girls and wants a gender balanced class. Schools with evenly balanced application pools reward achievement and potential equally, and without regard to gender. </p>
<p>(Hope<em>to</em>Help’s quote also leaves unanswered the real question: how do the stats of DENIED women compared to those of admitted men?) </p>
<p>The only remaining question is whether all of this is fair. The dean says yes, I say no, and the Hope<em>to</em>Helps and soccerguys of the world pretend it isn’t happening. End of story, and no more posts from me on this subject. Thanks for your time.</p>
<p>We simply don’t have the data to say with any certainty that there is any gender discrimination. The data that we do have suggests that the holistic admissions process uses criteria that a greater percentage of male applicants meet. As I said, who are we to judge what optimal admissions criteria and their weights are? It should obviously not have to be based on creating equal admit rates between males and females, just as it should not have to be based on creating a gender balanced class of admittees.</p>
<p>W&M Admissions does say that they set out to “create a class” - presumably through shaping the holistic admissions process. I think the only debate we can really have, without more data, is over whether a mostly numbers based or holistic admissions process is better.</p>
<p>On second thought, we could discuss what the holistic criteria are, but that could not be done without incorporating the identity desired by the College. But I would imagine that that is not the discussion that you desire. The College is, however, holding a series of campus-wide meetings with faculty, staff, students, townsfolk, and alumni to discuss the direction the College should go in and what identity we should take (i.e. does ‘small public liberal arts research university’ really define us well?).</p>
<p>Anyway, thank you for bringing this up. It was certainly enlightening to discuss gender and the college admissions process.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>you have no proof that is going on.</p>
<p>if it makes you feel vindicated though novaparent, the average GPA of females at WM is approximately .15 higher than the average male GPA.</p>
<p>(These are numbers at WM, not high school records)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Short of a smoking gun memo, the only evidence that would really demonstrate discrimination would be what novaparent suggested. If it can be shown that there are many denied females with stronger records than accepted males, that would make the case. There is lots of wiggle room with holistic admissions, however.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This shows another problem with looking at aggregate data. Simpson’s Paradox could be at work here. For instance, it could be that males and females do equally well in each class, but females are more likely to take classes in which grades are higher. A trivial example would have two classes. In class A, there are eight females and two males, and everyone gets an A. In class B, there are two females and eight males, and everyone gets a B. Females have an average GPA of (32+6)/10 = 3.8 while males have (8+24)/10 = 3.2. It is absolutely possible that the students in class A really are better, but we cannot say for sure without more information.</p>