<p>What do you all think of this?</p>
<p>Girls are smarter, especially in science and math. It has something to do with their brains. ;)</p>
<p>As a woman, I feel completely enraged whenever I read an article like this that attempts to paint boys as a disadvantaged minority!! </p>
<p>Allowing extra boys admission to prep schools because there are more girls getting in is ridiculous! Boys aren't being kept out of prep schools because of any systematic prejudice. </p>
<p>When will being a girl ever be an advantage, ever? The second that girls outrank boys in something, the powers that be immediately turn the tables so the boys come out on top. Again.</p>
<p>"Girls are smarter, especially in science and math. It has something to do with their brains."</p>
<p>Perhaps this explains why my daughter's BC Calculus class was almost entirely girls. (It really was.)</p>
<p>I wasn't joking, even if I do think it ironic.</p>
<p>I'm not joking, either. </p>
<p>My daughter attends a school that is heavily Asian. It would never occur to an Asian girl to think that she is intrinsically unsuited for math and science. Therefore, Asian girls take as many advanced classes in these subjects as the boys do and do at least as well. I think their attitude is rubbing off on students from other ethnic groups, such as my (white) daughter, who sees nothing unusual or "unfeminine" in the fact that math is her best subject. </p>
<p>I think that girls were held back academically mostly by people's attitudes. As those attitudes change and the stereotypes disappear, we will see what girls can really do.</p>
<p>And there had better not be any "gender weighting" in public schools. That's not affirmative action to compensate for past inequities. It's discrimination, pure and simple. I think it's motivated by a reluctance to admit that it's possible that there really might be more academically superior girls than academically superior boys -- what a horrifying prospect! ;)</p>
<p>Guys consistently outperform girls on the SAT (due to inherent factors in the test that favor males) and no one's made any accomodation for that. I read somewhere that when the first IQ tests were being developed, they threw out any questions on which girls did better than guys. And the SAT came out of those early IQ tests. Instead of lowering the standards for the guys, why not figure out a way to bring them up to the girls. That would be better for everyone.</p>
<p>I think they should all go to Smith. ;)</p>
<p>This is stereotypical, feminist, chauvinist, sexist, and assimilationary.</p>
<p>This is narrow.</p>
<p>The only comment I'll make is that if you read the article but switch the genders, people would be up in arms. If girls were being systematically left out of high achieving schools, we'd all be upset. To some extent, isn't that what Title IX was all about?</p>
<p>My point is that our society can't afford to let an entire gender go down the tubes. I don't think boys need affirmative action, but I do think people ought to look into why they are doing so poorly. Do any of you really want to have a society where there is no gender equity? I don't, anymore than I want an underclass of any kind.</p>
<p>Achieving gender parity means that girls should be equally represented, not overrepresented. Unless we want to suggest that intrinsic differences make girls smarter, which I think Larry Summers has showed us is not a good idea, than we have to look at why boys are being left behind.</p>
<p>According to the article, they are left behind because girls do the work, apparently. No one in the article suggested they were smarter; they suggested they were more prepared for the schools. Any guy who wants to, can choose to be so prepared.</p>
<p>Mimi, that's no better than ex-Harvard President Larry Summers' commentary on the topic - and at least he was expressly doing it for inflammatory purposes.</p>
<p>[url=<a href="http://www.tumr.com/view/?id=20&app=college%5DNash%5B/url">http://www.tumr.com/view/?id=20&app=college]Nash[/url</a>]</p>
<p>Didn't we beat this poor horse absolutely to death before???</p>
<p>Cangel -- YES!!!</p>
<p>"Mimi, that's no better than ex-Harvard President Larry Summers' commentary on the topic - and at least he was expressly doing it for inflammatory purposes."</p>
<p>I think you understand irony, don't you? </p>
<p>As Garland implies, their brains tell them to do the work. And yes, if you want to do well, that's a very "smart" thing to do. ;)</p>
<p>In reading the article I saw no reference to girls being better in math and science, just that they were more prepared for this particular standardized test for admissions to those Chicago schools.</p>
<p>What I did find was the following quote:</p>
<p>
[quote]
If the test requires writing, girls are at an advantage, one professor says.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Marian, you have a single datapoint, your daughter's class. However, according to the collegeboard the AP test results for Calculus AB and BC show that more boys take those tests and they also do better. Here are the numbers of the 2005 year for Calculus AB and BC:</p>
<p>Girls AB BC
Number taking the test 86611 21760
Average 2.77 3.55</p>
<p>Boys AB BC
Number taking the test 94050 31597
Average 3.06 3.85</p>
<p>You can get this breakdown here:</p>
<p>Look in the National Summary spreadsheet link off that page.</p>
<p>Cangel, sjmom, yes this horse has left the barn and been beaten to death in many other threads.</p>
<p>Thanks for the data, Eagle.</p>
<p>ICarGirl, I think that parity means that both boys and girls should have an equal opportunity to get into the prep schools, not that the number of each gender in the programs should be the same.</p>
<p>If the criteria for admission are appropriate (meaning that they are relevant to what a kid needs to be able to do to succeed in these programs), and if both boys and girls are given the opportunity in school to learn the skills needed to meet the criteria for admission, then I don't think it's unfair if more students of one gender than the other qualify.</p>
<p>As for the SAT favoring boys, that used to be true. But I wonder whether it will still be true with the three-part 2400-point test. The writing section might well favor girls.</p>
<p>I read the article and found the side bar interesting. On the standardize testing the boys and girls did virtually the same. It seems to have been the classroom performance which set the girls apart.</p>
<p>In our district HS's there are usually slightly more girls than boys in the top 10% of the class. However aside from athletics, the girls far outnumber the boys in club leadership and participation. But significantly more boys earn National Merit honors as both finalists and commended most years and occasionally we have a NMSemifinalis who is not in the top 10% of the class. This is always a boy, without exception.</p>
<p>I attribute the "boy problem" to a lack of maturity and perhaps some cognitive developmental issues. </p>
<p>But to the OP issue, should there be gender weighting? There is the perception, probably true, that boys get some break in admissions to some colleges, usually LAC's. However girls probably get a similar break in admissions into male dominated fields like engineering.</p>
<p>In the Chicago situation, more girls apply to these special high schools so they should be admitted in higher numbers. An equitable compromise might be to admit a similar %age of boys and girls competing for these schools provided they were proficient enough to handle the curriculum.</p>
<p>Another thing that wasnt mentioned in the article was x factors in the admissions process. If disciplinary records are reviewed to screen out applicants, this may be another reason for the discrepancy.</p>
<p>Gender weighting should not be a factor in admissions. Period.</p>