female vs male standards for admission

Parents Forum
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<p>If you did a little deeper into the gender gap, you will see that it may also have enthnic/racial components. One of the major underlying challenges, cited by Swarthmore’s admissions director, is the low numbers of male African American (and to a slightly lesser extent) Latino applicants. The pool of male African American high school graduates is small, making the pool of academically exceptional male African American students prohibitively small. </p>

<p>The result is a severe gender imbalance among minority cohorts that are an increasingly large percentage of the enrollment. This has real implications at a school like Swarthmore that is massively committed to diversity (45% US minority and international currently).</p>

<p>You can see it in the race/gender splits for this year’s student body:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.swarthmore.edu/Documents/administration/ir/RaceSex.pdf[/url]”>http://www.swarthmore.edu/Documents/administration/ir/RaceSex.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Total Enrollment (100%):
49% Male
51% Female</p>

<p>African American (10%):
36% Male
64% Female</p>

<p>Hispanic (11%):
36% Male
64% Female</p>

<p>Asian American (17%):
48% Male
52% Female</p>

<p>Unknown (10%):
43% Male
57% Female</p>

<p>International (7%):
55% Male
45% Female</p>

<p>White (45%):
56% Male
44% Female</p>

<hr>

<p>In order to balance the enrollment, Swarthmore must heavily favor males in the *white *and international cohorts. It could be reasonably argued that they, in effect, have to practice affirmative action for white males.</p>

<p>The implications for admissions chances for white females are sobering, indeed. This is a big reason that you get stories of “valedictorians with 2400 SATs” getting waitlisted. There are only 305 white females in the entire student body at Swarthmore or about 75 per class. </p>

<p>Now, Swarthmore is a bit extreme because it is a liberal arts college and therefore attractive to female applicants (although the engineering department balances that a bit) plus it is inordinately committed to diversity, which makes it’s gender balance tougher. Nevertheless, these are the demographics that are helping to drive the gender imbalance. These demographics highlight how important it is that applicants understand that they are competing in a specific demographic category and the category they are in has a significant impact on whether a particular college is a reach, a match, or a safety.</p>

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<p>^^Nice post! Ironic you mention the music issue–I was just out of town recently and was at a restaurant where I saw a picture of a local Mariachi Band the restaurant sponsored. It caught my eye because they were all Latino children ages 9-13 in beautiful traditional clothing. Upon closer inspection I noticed that 12 out of the 17 musicians were girls. The band director was an older gentleman. I couldn’t help but think,“Where are the boys”?</p>

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<p>I have been hearing A LOT about this subject… in fact there was a big article in the NYT education supplement about a month ago. My S and I were just at Dartmouth visiting the school a few weeks ago. In the info session and tour there were 25 girls and 1 guy… my S. I said to myself, “wow, I guess the stories ARE true.” I know that Dartmouth is around 50/50 guys to girls but I’m now wondering how many more girls get rejected???</p>

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<p>I can’t say that I see this in my experience as a teacher and a parent. Perhaps it is because I am a math teacher and my D is a math/science student. I still see boys outperforming girls in math. And, I still see boys as much more confident in their abilities (even when the girls are actually stronger).</p>

85

<p>Great post by Interestteddad. Race is a big component of the college gender gap. Not all of it, but a lot of it.</p>

<p>I haven’t looked at the data, but I would bet that colleges with D1 sports programs are much less affected by the gender gap.</p>

86

<p>Another data point: Several years ago I compared statistics for the flagship university and the state colleges in the state where I live (which will remain anonymous). The state flagship, which was harder to get into, was 60/40 female to male. But the colleges, which rarely turned down anyone, were weighted the opposite – heavily male. </p>

<p>That said to me that a significant chunk of boys were not performing well enough in high school to qualify for the tougher standards to be admitted to the flagship. And it also was one answer to the question – where are the boys.</p>

<p>Interesteddad: really interesting statistics about Swarthmore, and I’ll bet there are many other LACs that have similar numbers for white females. I’ll also wager that many of those white females at Swarthmore are science/math majors. A white female from a Northeast suburb who wants to major in English or international relations or art history is going to have a rough time getting into many selective colleges.</p>

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<p>I think the underlying trends are the same, but Swarthmore is probably a little extreme, for three reasons:</p>

<p>First, it is the most diverse elite college or university on the East Coast (Harvard is close), so the impact of that on gender balance is heightened.</p>

<p>Second, it is an historically co-ed college. Most of the elite colleges and universities were all-male and that traditional “maleness” has tended to slow the inevitable gender balance issue. For example, Williams shifted to majority female quite a few years after Swarthmore crossed that bridge (back in the 1990s).</p>

<p>Third, if you think it’s tough to recruit African American and Latino males with very high academic qualifications at a run-of-the-mill elite college, try recruiting in those finite pools when your slogan is “Anywhere Else Would Have Been an A…” and your one sentence brand is “maybe the most academically demanding school in America”. I mean, that is just a big cultural leap for guys. Not as much for girls.</p>

<hr>

<p>One thing I would recommend is to look at the demographics for each school on your lists. These numbers are not always readily predictable, either from a gender or ethnic diversity standpoint. One thing is consistent though. Whatever the numbers are, they will tell you a lot about the culture and priorities of any school.</p>

88

<p>A 2006 article on this topic, with excerpt below:
[ACE</a> | College Enrollment Gender Gap Widens for White and Hispanic Students, but Race and Income Disparities Still Most Significant New ACE Report Finds](<a href=“American Council on Education”>American Council on Education)

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89

<p>great stuff interesteddad…a quick search found some U of Illinois data circa 2007, of similar pattern to the Swarthmore data.
[University</a> of Illinois: Student Enrollment Reports](<a href=“http://www.dmi.illinois.edu/stuenr/index.asp#ethgen]University”>http://www.dmi.illinois.edu/stuenr/index.asp#ethgen)</p>

<p>Total Enrollment<br>
53% male
47% female</p>

<p>African American<br>
40% male
60% female</p>

<p>Hispanic<br>
50% male
50% female</p>

<p>Asian/Pacific Isl<br>
56% male
44% female</p>

<p>Unknown
58% male
42% female</p>

<p>Foreign
63% male
37% female</p>

<p>Caucasian<br>
53% male
47% female</p>

90

<p>Yep. And keep in mind that female applications at Swarthmore dwarf male applications. So that gender split in the white cohort is an intentional admissions effort to gender balance the overall student body. It means that white guys face a less daunting admissions challenge than white females. I think that is generally true across the board, although to differing degrees depending on the school.</p>

<p>The best stack of applicants to be in, at least for Swarthmore, is the stack of academically qualified African American males. Those admissions odds are very good – although Barack Obama managed to get rejected.</p>

91

<p>5boys:</p>

<p>one can find the apps by gender on a college’s Common Data Set. Up until three years ago, Dartmouth received more male apps than female. But that recently changed and now D receives more apps from females. It may only be a coincidence, but D’s former Admissions Director retired about three years ago and was replaced by a female. Or, perhaps Dr. Kim has created new interest in the school.</p>

92

<p>I think Dartmouth is an example of a school whose culture was so “male” with the fraternities and drinking and history that the inevitable wave of female demographics just crashed on the beach a few years later than elsewhere. Most of the Ivy League was late, but that only makes sense given that females weren’t even allowed to apply until very recently in the history of all those schools. There was less resistance to the inevitable demographic shift at schools that have been enrolling women for a century or more.</p>

<p>Plus, the whole tradition of elite eduction was single sex in New England. In most of the rest of the country (midwest, south, west), the higher education traditions were largely co-ed from day one as their traditions sprung up in the late 1800s during the first wave of coeducation.</p>

93

<p>Cornell and Penn have been co-ed since the 1870s.</p>

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<p>The boy advantage is quite limited in all but a few LACs. I see girls who want to be engineers or math majors having a great admit advantage in tech schools or engineering programs at general colleges. Since girls having higher GPAs, they probably have the advantage at stats driven, flagship State Us.</p>

<p>In my oldest son’s HS class (2007) the National Honor Society admits are based solely on GPA, with community service later required. Fully 2/3 of the inductees were girls. There were 6 National Merit Semi-finalists that year (3 boys and 3 girls). My son was the only boy that mde it to finalist status, while all three girls did.</p>

<p>While boys should not be given a pass for being lazy or unmotivated, they may also learn differently and mature later. Look at any group of 8th graders or HS freshman. The girls look like young ladies while very few boys look like young men and most still look like boys. There is a reason why elementary and middle schools do not require the level of homework that high schools do - kids are not mature enough to handle this. For many boys, that immaturity continues into high school. </p>

<p>Things have changed. I don’t know any girls that believe they can’t be anything they want to be.</p>

95

<p>On the matter of public colleges and universities, here is some data on the male:female ratio among undergrads at some of the SUNYs:</p>

<p>SUNY Albany 51:49</p>

<p>SUNY Buffalo 55:45</p>

<p>SUNY Binghamton 52:48</p>

<p>SUNY Stony Brook 47:53</p>

<p>SUNY New Paltz 36:64</p>

<p>SUNY Geneseo 43:57</p>

<p>SUNY Potsdam 42:58</p>

<p>SUNY Oswego 48:52</p>

<p>SUNY Oneonta 42:58</p>

<p>SUNY Brockport 44:56</p>

<p>SUNY ESF 56:44</p>

<p>SUNY Tech at Alfred 63:37</p>

<p>And here is a link to a “Top 100 List” of coed schools with the largest percentage of male students. No surprise: the military academies and tech schools dominate the list.</p>

<p>[Highest</a> Male-to-Female Ratio: Medium Colleges and Universities](<a href=“http://www.citytowninfo.com/cti/test/highest-male-to-female-ratio-medium-colleges-and-universities.shtml]Highest”>Highest Male-to-Female Ratio: Medium Colleges and Universities)</p>

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<p>Therefore, there should be different criteria for boys and girls, based on their HS school performance as well as their stretchability (or academic growth potential).</p>

97

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<p>That sounds like affirmative action!</p>

98

<p>'That sounds like affirmative action!"</p>

<p>Oh no, we can’t have that. Doesn’t matter the numbers, no advantages allowed…especially if they’re white. Affirmative action is only allowed to work against the boys, not for them.</p>

99

<p>Interested Dad: thank you for posting the statistical information. One can debate whether spots have shifted to Caucasian boys or AA/Asian/Hispanic girls, but in the preservation of gender balance and promotion of diversity opportunity it is pretty clear which demographic group is the only loser. My Caucasian daughter is a Swat applicant this year (with the school being one or her top choices) and the recognition that she is vying for one of 75 spots, some of which already are gone or going via ED is deeply discouraging, as she has perfect ACT and SAT II scores to go with her top 2% rank and excellent and quirky extracurricular activities. Oh well, she interviewed well and what will be will be.</p>

<p>Busdriver 11- whatever will we do to help end the discrimination against those white American males and preserve opportunities for those who won’t make an effort for themselves despite every demographic and cultural advantage?</p>

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<p>The only attitude you can have is the old Bill Parcells/Bill Belichick adage, “It is what it is.” You can’t change the demographics, so all you can do is give it your best shot, hope for the best, and not take it as a personal rejection if the numbers don’t go your way.</p>

<p>You daughter’s extracurriculars may be just the ticket to make her application stand out and then, it doesn’t matter how daunting the demographics may be.</p>