<p>I have heard that Amherst’s social gender ratio ends up like 6:1 or something ridiculous like that, due to Smith/Holyoke students coming over on the weekends. Truth to this rumor?</p>
<p>Nope. The Class of 2012 was nearly 1:1 (219 men, 220 women).</p>
<p>Let’s see: there were 829 men on our campus as of Fall 2008. So, no, 4,974 women from Mount Holyoke and Smith do not come to visit every weekend.</p>
<p>At the parties, cultural events, and performances sponsored by Amherst, the gender ratio is just about even.</p>
<p>Good to know, thanks. I never believed the 6:1 number (maybe the poster was referring to overall Five College population?), obviously, but I am also suspicious of staying near 1:1 after factoring in Five College. For that to happen, an Amherst woman would have to leave campus for every Smith/Holyoke woman who visited–and that seems implausible to me.</p>
<p>huh? the ratio at amherst college is obviously approximately 1:1, but in terms of the “social scene” I also heard that on weekends the ratio is skewed in that a lot of girls from Smith and Mount Holyoke come. I don’t know about this 6:1 ratio, that seems a little ridiculous. Maybe for the smith, mount holyoke, and amherst population it’s 6:1 but definitely not for the whole 5 colleges.</p>
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<p>Let’s suppose you attend Amherst College, and are interested in socializing with individuals of the opposite gender. Let’s further suppose that you, as an undergraduate at a highly ranked LAC, are particularly inclined to socialize with other students from highly ranked LACs.</p>
<p>If you are a male Amherst student, you could potentially socialize with 850 Amherst women, 2,600 Smith women, or 2,100 MHC women. There are – at least in theory – about 5,550 women who meet the criteria above. </p>
<p>If you are a female Amherst student, you could potentially socialize with 850 Amherst men who meet the criteria above. This is a smaller number, and is probably where the “6:1 ratio” comes from (if so, it actually might be closer to 7:1).</p>
<p>Obviously this is a simplistic analysis, but it does seem likely that male and female Amherst students may have different perceptions about the available social opportunities. </p>
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Note also that Amherst students have the option of leaving campus to socialize at Smith or MHC. But for some reason, this option seems to be particularly popular with male Amherst students. So there may be a net outflow of men, as well as a net inflow of women, when social opportunities arise. </p>
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The numbers for the whole consortium are dominated by UMass. They work out to about 1.5:1, or only about 50% more women than men.</p>
<p>Thank you for the hypotheticals and analysis, Corbett. I was not really thinking of UMass, for much the same reasons that you excluded it from your example.</p>