These colleges accept males and females at roughly the same rates:
Amherst
Claremont McKenna
Hamilton
Washington & Lee
Colgate
Grinnell
Macalester
Oberlin
Colorado College
Comment
Further information would be needed in order to determine whether these disparities convert to differential attributes for accepted and attending students.
(Source for data: “At some colleges, your gender – man or woman – might give you an admissions edge,” The Washington Post.)
When I was in hs there was clearly a lot of self-selection going on with respect to who enrolled in the AP STEM classes. I have a hard time believing that there is not also some self-selection going on with the female applicants to tech schools. Not clear that there would be a similar trend with the males applying to schools where they are under-represented.
Do yield rates correlate with the deltas (or lack thereof) in acceptance rates boys versus girls? That is, Colby accepts a higher percent of its female applicants because it yields less relative to boys?
Just like with different admission rates for ED, EA, legacy, and other characteristics, no real conclusion can be made without information on the strength of the different applicant pools. Of course, such information is not released.
Mudd is indeed a LAC. Most of their majors are liberal arts majors (math, bio, chem , physics – all are liberal arts). It is also ranked with the LACs in USNews.
Part of the difference is whether the college is striving to have a balanced gender campus.
From the WP article:
“Another factor that influences admission rates is whether a college aims to enroll as many men as women, or whether it is content to allow for some imbalance in the student body. Women have outnumbered men in U.S. colleges since 1979. They now account for about 57 percent of post-secondary enrollment in degree-granting schools.”
I looked up a few of the LACs on the list and, for example, Macalester has 61% female vs. 39% male on campus (accepts males and females at roughly the same rate) while Bates (50/50), Pomona and Davidson (both at 51%F, 49%M) are trying to enroll a more gender-balanced class which explains the difference in acceptance rate.
Not saying one is better than the other but it does give some context as to why the acceptance rates might be different.
Interestingly, Conn (with a 62/38 female/male ratio) had a 7-point gap - favoring female applicants. Looks like this gap existed in previous years. Yield is also higher for male applicants.
@intparent@marvin100 MIT offers majors in French, History, and Literature. That doesn’t make it a LAC. Harvey Mudd’s skewed demographics clearly signal that the students don’t think of it as a LAC. As to classifying “most” of its majors, being part of the Claremont Consortium with truer LACs like Pomona and Scripps may make it appear more liberal arts than is the reality.
At those levels of acceptance rates, I’d say yes. For example, Williams accepted 18% of females and 21% percent of males, representing a 17% better chance for males.
@PrimeMeridian LAC = “Liberal Arts College.” Which usually means small enrollment, undergraduate-focused school with majors that are academic rather than vocationally-oriented (i.e. there would be economics and government majors, but not accounting or “business”, etc.). If you look at the US News rankings you will see them divide research universities and LAC’s into separate rankings and can browse the list of LAC’s there.
The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education determines whether an institution is a liberal arts college (or a different type of university/college) based on established criteria: http://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu/lookup/lookup.php
In summary it defines it as:
Undergraduate focus, Baccalaureate degrees, Small size, Liberal arts curriculum,Faculty focus on teaching,Focus on community,Residential
By this definition, Harvey Mudd is definitely an LAC. The only thing that might make you wonder is “Liberal arts curriculum” but as it is explained: “Liberal arts colleges focus on broad skills in critical thinking and writing, not narrow preprofessional skills. Along with a focused major, liberal arts students will take a breadth of courses in fields such as religion, philosophy, literature, math, science, psychology, and sociology.)”, Mudd definitely fits the bill here too.