In looking at college stats, I noticed that Princeton has a big gender gap among students–about 55% male, 45% female. Any ideas as to why women aren’t choosing (or being chosen) to attend Princeton? I understand that people may think of it as a boys’ club–is it still that way? Any Princeton women out there who might share their experience and advice to young women considering the school?
It looks like among undergrads, it’s 52/48 (male/female): https://inclusive.princeton.edu/our-progress/demographics
Not sure what’s going on with the grad level though.
That undergrad ratio of 52/48 men/women is similar at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, UChicago, etc.
So long as gender ratios aren’t extreme…like 70/30 or greater, most students won’t notice much of a difference in day-to-day life.
When I visited Princeton’s campus in early 2015, I didn’t notice a stark gender imbalance.
Incidentally, when I attended undergrad at Oberlin in the mid-late '90s, the gender ratio was somewhere ~60% female/40% male and even then, didn’t really notice a gender imbalance. Nowadays, Oberlin’s student gender ratio is 56% female, 44% male.
I think the only way one notices a gender imbalance either way is if the ratios are far greater than say 60/40…like 70/30 or greater which was the case with Vassar when HS classmates from my period attended in the mid-late '90s.