Male Female Ratios

Prep School Admissions Prep School Parents
1

I had assumed boarding school gender ratios to be relatively equal, and therefore a non-issue, but discovered that was not the case when I came across a 56:44 ratio at Loomis and a 54:46 ratio at Hill (each in favor of boys) and thought I should do some more digging. Surprisingly, boarding school review does not seem to have gender ratios, but niche does (they appear to be accurate, but I don’t know for sure).

It is clear that far more boys than girls attend coed boarding schools: only two schools I saw, Concord Academy (53:47) and Thacher (51:49), had majority girls.

Here’s an incomplete list, from my limited purview:

50:50 schools: Andover, Cate, George, Choate, Mercersburg, St. George’s, Episcopal

51:49 schools: St. Andrews, Middlesex

52:48 schools: Deerfield, Groton, Taft, Exeter, Lawrenceville, Williston, NMH, Masters

53:47 schools: Hotchkiss, St. Mark’s, Tabor, Governor’s

54:46 schools: Hill, Peddie

56:44 schools: Loomis, Kent, Berkshire

57:43 schools: Holderness

Does this matter for the student experience? Maybe or maybe not, but I do start to raise an eyebrow at 53:47 or greater and, in general, think 50:50 is more desirable than not in that regard. I think schools believe this too, but often go with 52:48 because it maintains a relative gender balance while not sacrificing admissions standards. (In case it’s not obvious, this is peripheral admissions data: a 52:48 with the same SSATs and admissions rate as a 50:50 is not really identical according to those metrics, but a hair lower. Stated differently, if a 50:50 wanted to go to 52:48, scores would slightly increase.)

What might be more relevant is that a small gender imbalance will lead to a larger one (or a lowering of admissions standards) when demographics change — and they are changing. 2009 babies are about 2 years away (when there was a major United States birth rate decline), so it will be difficult for schools to maintain existing ratios and current admission standards unless they markedly increase the proportion of international admits. 50/50 schools are obviously in a better position to weather this storm, simply because they will have one more tool in the toolbox and be able to go to 52:48, say, with no international student increase or admissions standard reduction (or less of one).

2

Interesting. Could make a difference if it’s off by a lot. I would ask admissions for the last few years. The online data aggregates that you mentioned are often incorrect and have bad/incorrect data. One of my kids wanted to know a specific data point and it was listed incorrectly. When we spoke to the school, the data was available.
I would certainly ask. Some schools have more/less girl /boy dorms so the numbers can vary slightly.

3

Some schools transitioned from all male to co-ed and have had to adjust housing to accommodate more girls. I know at Mburg they switched a larger boys dorm to a girls dorm and a smaller girls dorm to a boys dorm to even things out. That probably happened around 10+ years ago, but the school has been co-ed for 50 years. I wonder if some schools are still transitioning dorms, etc. May be worth asking about…

4

@pincite you have a 7th grader? So a year to research boarding schools – and btw, I probably would be researching a year out, myself in your position. I’ve been doing that with athletic recruiting, well before I really needed to. My suggestion, though, would be to ask questions about areas of concern. E.g. with the sex ratio. Why not ask if the 53/47 ratio at Hotchkiss, say, affects the culture of the school, instead of making the pronouncement that it must, and for all the schools with that much of an imbalance or more?

Or ask about the presence of international kids. Or, ask why a school might not have German (from your other thread). It is clear you are giving boarding school some good thought, but also that you don’t have first hand experience with them, or at least, experience from the inside, e.g. as an employee.

PS that 1% difference (between 52% and 53%) is about 5 kids at Hotchkiss. Or 15 - 18 kids out of 600 compared to a 50/50 school. That’s 4 extra boys per class. Do 15 more boys affect the school culture so that it is very different socially etc than at a 50/50 school? I would guess not really, but others certainly can chime in with their experiences.

BTW I question the accuracy of the figures, because the number of each sex is definitely linked to the availability of beds. I am fairly certain there aren’t always four more boy beds than girl – Hotchkiss changes the dorms around, so one might be a boys dorm one year and a girl dorm the next.

5

@cinnamon1212 I don’t recall making a pronouncement that a 53/47 necessarily impacts the culture of a school. I think you need to read my post more closely. You seem to know Hotchkiss well and are in a better position than I to confirm the figures, but they pass the straight face test to me. I am not sure why you are making assumptions about my background but, suffice to say, I would not ask an admissions officer of a school not offering German why they did not do so; that would be a silly and irrelevant question to ask. Nor would I advise other posters to ask questions of no relevance to their child’s interest in that specific school.

6

I think you are overthinking it. My guess would be that most of the schools that have slightly more boys do so on purpose, could be as simple as needing more boys for sports. Two football teams require a lot of boys, way more than two field hockey teams (the usual girl counterpart). The smaller the school, the harder it is to come up with those numbers organically. But if they really wanted to hit 50-50, easiest way would be to take a few extra day students, not bringing in more international students.

7

I would guess that some families are more reluctant to send girls to boarding schools for cultural reasons. So there is maybe some supply and demand going on.

Plus the numbers will naturally fluctuate year to year, especially with small schools. Two extra girls accept or two fewer boys, and you will have an imbalance in a given year.

I don’t know that it makes too much of a difference experientially.

8

Sorry @pincite, I am a little incoherent today. I meant, ask your questions here on the forum, as questions, instead of as already formed opinions. Not ask them of the schools’ admissions officers.

9

@417WHB The number of boys and girls for sports, I thought, had to be largely the same — Title IX. Isn’t that why women’s volleyball is offered and, typically, not men’s?

These male-female ratios are by design: admissions officers know exactly what they are doing. All schools could be 50-50 if they wanted to be (do note that several of the 50/50 schools are small). They are choosing not to be, for a variety of reasons. To be sure, these may include beds/dorms and sports or other tangential reasons.

But here’s the main reason: there are way more boys in the applicant pool. In the aggregate, limiting the proportion of boys therefore means lowering admission standards or even enrollment. Just like increasing the male proportion will up the scores and lower the admissions rate. It is that simple, so I think those coming up with other reasons for this are the ones who are overthinking.

The demographic crunch will be in full force 5 years from now, in terms of a smaller US applicant pool: the gender imbalance, however modest it is now, will for most schools only increase. The only other alternatives are enrollment reductions, more international students, or lower admission standards for boarders and day students alike (it will likely be a combination of all three).

In fact, I would go so far as to say that some lesser known New England boarding schools (just like small New England colleges are already doing) will close…

10

FWIW, the shocking rejections I’ve encountered in our social circle have all been girls. I was under the impression that girls tend to have better qualifications and that’s why the competition is so stiff.

11

I went to Lawrenceville (a female) just a few years after it became co-ed. It was not 50/50, mostly for the fact there were fewer girls houses for sophmore/junior years than boys houses (an issue they have now overcome with the addition of a 5th crescent house). I have no idea what the ratio of boys to girls was while I was there and it had absolutely zero effect on the school community. In fact, there was a campaign going on with the slogan 50/50 by 2000 and the first time I saw it , I had to ask a friend what it meant because at the time, I didn’t realize we weren’t 50-50. I truly don’t think you’d notice any sort of imbalance in the community in any of the schools you have listed.

12

How do we know there are way more boys in the applicant pool? I just tried googling and I completely struck out. Admittedly my google skills aren’t the best, but I couldn’t find out how many girls apply, how many boys apply, or what the ratio of applicants is. Are you sure there are many more boys applying?

13

I’m confused about the “not sacrificing admissions standards” comment that you keep making @Pincite. Does admitting girls mean they need to lower their standards?

In all your stats are you listing boys/girls?

14

My Kent grad tells me that they converted the newest and nicest dorm, formerly limited to Seniors, to all Freshman and other girls in part to address a growing difficulty in attracting more female applicants.

15

These numbers seem to fluctuate from year to year within the same school, showing that they have less to do with institutional priorities than some may imply. At our school, the IV Form class has 4 more girls than boys, the VI Form class has 6 more boys than girls, and I’m pretty sure that latter class was 50/50 when they started out in III Form. The school’s website has no stats at all on boys vs girls ratio. I literally had to go to the student directory and count… I wonder where Niche gets their info from, and how anyone knows if it’s current or accurate.

16

I suspect there is always going to be a little variation from year to year around the edges even though they probably have roughly the same #of beds for each.

Perhaps the school can take a few extra great day students because beds don’t matter and these happen to be girls. Maybe a couple of kids don’t come back and the school chooses not to replace them or not to replace them with the same gender. Maybe the anticipated yields are off. I think overall, most coed schools are aiming for 50/50 but probably don’t worry if it’s 55/45. Given the size of most schools, a difference like that is probably imperceptible to the students.

Most LACs have more females, btw, and more female applicants.

17

@gardenstatelegal Yes, LACs are struggling with a 60:40 ratio (or worse)in favor of girls. The very top LACs keep it close to 50:50 though, because they can (and others can’t; this is an admissions issue). Just as this is an issue for LACs, it might become an issue for some boarding schools in 5 years.

@one1ofeach All of the listings are boys 50% or greater and girls 50% or less except for two — Concord and Thatcher. Sorry that was not more clear. So that’s 27/29. In other words, coed boarding schools have way more boys, yearly fluctuations aside.

Yes, in circumstances when there is much more of one applicant type —. whether it be males or females — and the class is being evened out, by definition (again, only in the aggregate) that involves a lowering of admissions standards. In the boarding school case, that means girls, but there is a very known example of this involving boys, who have easier admissions standards to many LACs in spite of a common 60:40 ratio. LACs are loathe to go beyond 60:40 but they easily could, and slightly improve admission standards. The disproportion is a big issue…

18

I can understand why you could leap to “lowering of admissions standards”, but even the lowly "second tier’ schools here on CC have to turn down lots of applicants they want (of both genders) because they just don’t have enough beds.

While a boy faces less competition to get into Vassar than a girl, I don’t think that in the end, the males at Vassar are less qualified than the females. But more well-qualified females were turned away. And there are a handful of schools (including LACs) that get more male applicants than female, but I would be surprised if achievement in the classroom isn’t the same.

One student might be highly valued because of what they will bring to the field hockey program while another may be a math superstar and another an amazing creative writer. There is no lowering of standards for any although each may not be so strong in some area(s). If you were creating relay teams of runners, yes, you would be measuring every prospect on the same thing, how fast they could run. But this isn’t that!

Off the top of my head, though, I can think of many more all girls BS than all boys, so there may be more beds in total for girls and more options.

19

@Pincite
That’s interesting but Are you making assumptions or have you been told by AOs this is true? For instance, I’ve always been told that girls tend to have stronger applications and day student girls tends to be ultra competitive.

20

Also every AO I’ve spoken to has said they reject kids with perfect grades and scores every year. So I think the situation could be more accurately described as there are more qualified applicants than beds so they don’t need to lower standards to get x number of each gender.