<p>JHS:</p>
<p>You are being a little generous about Summers' comments. He proposed an hypothesis that women may be incapable of the highest levels of science research. This combined with the fact that tenure awarded to women at Harvard had fallen off a cliff during his presidency raised concerns...concerns that were probably heightened by Harvard being an Historically Male College that now has women making up half the student body.</p>
<p>All I can say is that most of the boys my son knows (and my son included) do not have the grades or test scores to match most of the girls, including in math and sciences. Obviously there are exceptions, but we know way more straight-A or almost-straight-A girls than boys.</p>
<p>Harvard just announced a woman president to replace Summers.</p>
<p>
[quote]
He proposed an hypothesis that women may be incapable of the highest levels of science research.
[/quote]
He did not! He refered to the tendency for males to have more outliers on the math aptitude bell curve. Thus, a likelihood that the very top math/science minds would be a group consisting of greater numbers of men than women. As would the group of people struggling in the most menial of jobs & floundering in prisons.</p>
<p>I really didn't think Summer's remarks in context were so terrible. I think they were only the straw that broke the camel's back as many were upset with his leadership style. I've never heard a whisper of complaint about Faust's handling of the Radcliffe Institute. I think she's a good choice.</p>
<p>jazzymom, You can see this information from the Center for Educational Statistic's website. For example here is Rutger's-NB:
Total Men Women </p>
<p>Number of applicants 25,462 12,644 12,818 </p>
<p>Percent admitted 60.6% 59.6% 61.7% </p>
<p>Sorry that it is not centered, but this is how it pasted.</p>
<p>Thanks, NEmom.</p>
<p>Your welcome.</p>
<p>I agree with silverspringmom...There is only one guy I know that could measure up to the many high ranking girls in my grade. Given, this guy is great: A+ student, most challenging courses offered, varsity soccer and track as a freshman. But I can't think of one other guy that comes even close to being in the top 10-15 students: they're all girls.</p>
<p>Well, as we've read time and again in various threads, admission is not "all about the stats." Many factors go into the "holistic" review, and apparently now one of them is gender. It may not look fair if you believe admission should be primarily by the numbers --- standardized test scores and GPAs --- but college adcoms are looking beyond stats to build the freshman class that most serves and fits their institution. It's the way it is.</p>
<p>Just try telling that to Jian Li, jazzymom...</p>
<p>
[quote]
Harvard just announced a woman president to replace Summers.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I'm aware of that. They almost had no choice, after Summers.</p>
<p>They apparently did try to hire several men (including Thomas Cech (head of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Nobel Prize winning chemist), but were turned down.</p>
<p>While the % of male app accepted to Wheaton doesn't shout out "</p>
<p>While the % of male app accepted to Wheaton doesn't shout out "WE WANT BOYS," the boys admitted come w/ much weaker stats and are often offer merit $$.</p>
<p>Those breakdowns of acceptances, male/female, had surprises for me. I guess you do have to look at actual stats and not make assumptions. It seemed to make sense to me that the former women's colleges would take a larger % of males, but that is not always the case</p>
<p>My understanding is that children born in 1989 were predominately females-ergo more female applicants in this year's applicant pool.</p>
<p>Data from the 2000 Census say that there were more males (age 10,11, 12--born around 1989) in the USA.</p>