<p>Squiddy - Thanks. I just checked Google maps and Raleigh-Durham (which has non-stop flights from London on BA) is around 3.5 hours from W&M. Still a long way after a transatlantic flight. Maybe this explains why the percentage of foreign students at W&M is so low, despite its excellent international relations program?</p>
<p>Most of my friends who fly to school go through Richmond International Airport (RIC). It’s less than an hour from WM.</p>
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<p>The only thing I really protest is your thread-hijacking into your favorite dead horse - I stated my belief long ago, that discrimination is actually necessary to avoid the problems that imbalances in applications cause. Fortunately, the guys I’ve met at W&M have nearly all been intelligent and capable - if they weren’t, they wouldn’t be able to keep up. </p>
<p>If you really want to speak seriously about gender discrimination on Virginia campuses, why not talk about the Virginia college that systematically suppressed reports of sexual attacks on female students in order to protect its reputation? Who has been in violation of the federal Clery act more than once? That threatened female students with punishment if they spoke out their cases? </p>
<p>I strongly suspect W&M gets such a high number of female applicants precisely because they know they’ll be treated with dignity and respect at W&M, in a caring and supportive environment, and won’t be treated as “sweater meat”, only there to be the playthings of frat boys after their beer pong tournaments.</p>
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<p>Actually, the only thing the numbers show is that W&M gets more female applicants than male applicants. Once again, you have REFUSED to explain why you think the admitted students should directly mirror the applicant pool.</p>
<p>You can point to UVA, but you do not offer an explanation for why UVA gets more male applicants than W&M does. Would it satisfy you if W&M offered zero applicant fees to males with SAT scores lower than 1000? Then the Admissions office could just toss them in the trash, but the percentage of accepted males would go down. However, it would have no impact on the quality of the admitted students. Is this what you would like to see?</p>
<p>You are a ■■■■■, because you have been posting about this topic, in multiple threads, FOR YEARS. All you can do is insinuate that the male students is inferior (which is the obvious thing you are hinting at, by saying it is easier for them to get in), despite the fact that YOU HAVE NO FACTS TO BACK THIS UP. None.</p>
<p>I say you have 77.33% chance… Dont ask how i got the .33
I thought German was still banned to learn. lets just hope we don’t go to war with Germany again</p>
<p>jackuk, the number of international students on campus is likely low because as a public university, we are unable to offer financial aid to international students. Most LACs are private and do not have this limitation placed on them. Furthermore, our location may be less familiar to international students than those LACs located in larger metropolitan areas with which they are familiar.</p>
<p>Our international student population is also very much on the rise. This year we had a 98% increase in the number of enrolling students from China for example.</p>
<p>As for the A levels, we like to see students challenge themselves and your D plans on math, science and Mandarin that’s a fine A level schedule. We also encourage international students to contact Dean Basket (<a href=“mailto:dlbask@wm.edu”>dlbask@wm.edu</a>). Her region is those overseas and international students and she can always guide you with course selection.</p>
<p>We do have study abroad programs in Asia (summer programs in Beijing, China and Goa, India and semester or year-long programs in Japan, Singapore and South Korea). Furthermore, you don’t have to go through a W&M program to study abroad. An '11 grad who interned in our office went to Jordan and another to the Philippines through other universities.</p>
<p>People seem to have addressed the travel question pretty thoroughly.</p>
<p>Novaparent, these is an inaccuracy in that article you quoted. The Dean of Admission only once said that we are William & Mary, not Mary & Mary so there might be a pretty clear bias or slant in that particular publication. Each institution has its own policy and philosophy and while some may not consider the gender balance of an incoming class important, some others do. We believe fully in every single student we admit and what they can bring to our campus and believe in the dynamic student body we’ve created. Our holistic and thorough review process is one that is not replicated at most other colleges and universities (although yes at many selective schools it is at least in part if not all) and we believe so strongly in the fairness of our review process in the attention it gives to every individual applicant that allows us to stand so firmly behind the decisions we make. We know that this particular debate is not going to be solved on CC and opinions and principles will likely hold firm but we appreciate the discussion.</p>
<p>I really don’t see the point in picking on W&M regarding boy/girl admission patterns. It’s common knowledge that fewer boys head to college than girls. So, since boys are scarcer, they have a better shot at admission to schools that like to keep close to a 50/50 balance. This is everywhere, not just W&M.</p>
<p>My son benefitted from this. He not only got into every school, but received far more merit than we anticipated. (Alas, no merit where he enrolled. :rolleyes: .)</p>
<p>My daughter, BetsyPV here, is a stronger student and applicant than her brother. Yet, we are all preparing for fewer acceptances and less merit. For example, we’ve adjusted her list so that we now consider “match schools” like W&M to be reaches. Safeties, like Elon, are now matches. Just because she’s a girl. </p>
<p>We can’t control what the admissions people will do. But, we can control our behavior in aniticipation and reaction the decisions. Whining about how it’s not fair is futile. The world’s not fair.</p>
<p>Dear W&M Admissions - Thank you for the helpful reply. We will definitely contact Dean Basket when we start to organise our East Coast college visits.</p>
<p>DougBetsy, very refreshing to see students and parents take such a thoughtful approach to the college search process and to manage expectations in a manner that will likely benefit all involved. Regardless of gender, any student considering highly selective schools like W&M should consider said schools reaches. All too often we hear students and families tell us they banked on admission to W&M and can’t understand why they were not admitted. When schools are admitting only 1/3 of their applicants or fewer no one should bank on admission because there is no formulaic process that guarantees any decision.</p>
<p>Looking at reaches, matches and safety schools is very wise and being realistic about outcomes (especially given that more students are submitting more applications every year) will help this process be less stressful.</p>
<p>“Whining about how it’s not fair is futile. The world’s not fair.”</p>
<p>Who’s whining exactly? Not me. But I’ll tell you who is – soccerguy, squiddy and everybody else on this board who have their heads in the sand.</p>
<p>I said it before, and I’ll say it again: the OP is a girl. She asked about her chances of admissions. I said they’d be better if she were a boy. I didn’t say if this were wrong or if it were right. I’m just saying it is.</p>
<p>W&M Admissions, you may be right that the article that I posted might be biased. Of course, it’s not the only article of its kind. But why don’t we simply cut to the chase. Let me put the question right to you:</p>
<p>Like William and Mary, UVA practices holistic admissions – but it is on record that it does not take gender into account AT ALL in evaluating applications. </p>
<p>JMU is also on record that it does not take gender into account AT ALL in evaluating applications – notwithstanding its own dissatisfaction with the results.</p>
<p>Does William and Mary take gender into account AT ALL in evaluating applications? </p>
<p>This is not a difficult question. At least not for UVA or JMU.</p>
<p>novaparent,</p>
<p>In your response to my counterpoint analogy for Engineering schools, you used UVA as the example, which does have an Engineering School, but not exactly what I had in mind in making the point for schools that are most noted for this major. While you continue to reference UVA and JMU policies in your notes, why have you left out Virginia Tech? </p>
<p>So let me pose a direct question, as you have in your last post: Would a female of comparable record have an easier time gaining admission to the Virginia Tech School of Engineering than a male applicant? How about Georgia Tech? MIT? Carnegie Melon? Cal Tech? I believe this would be the case and these schools would not try to deny this, as it has become an accepted practice to promote women in Engineering for a number of years. So why should this not work in reverse for the predominantly Liberal Arts Schools?</p>
<p>JimK27-</p>
<p>As a threshold matter, maybe the engineering schools that you’ve mentioned “would not try to deny” favoring women in admissions, but that’s not what’s going on here: there’s lots of denying going on. Very difficult to get a straight answer.</p>
<p>In any event, comparing W&M to UVA instead of Tech makes more sense because their applicant pools and admissions policies are more similar: unlike Tech, each has more women applying than men, and each practices holistic admissions. Tech admissions are much more by the numbers; they don’t even require an essay, for example. </p>
<p>The common data sets for VTech and GA Tech don’t report by undergraduate college, so I don’t know what the admit rates by gender are for, say, their engineering schools versus their schools of arts and letters. But the overall numbers for Virginia Tech show that, in the last three years, the admit rate for men ranged from 64 to 65 percent and for women from 68 to 70. So, yes, it would appear that the numbers slightly favor women (although the numbers are nowhere near as skewed as W&M’s are in the opposite direction). But this doesn’t surprise me at all, because any school that admits almost entirely by the numbers is going to admit more women than men because it’s a fact (not just my opinion) that on average girls have better high school records than boys. It’s for this same reason that the numbers for William and Mary as so confusing.</p>
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<p>Whining? Head in the sand? With regards to what? I’ve long expressed the opinion that W&M almost certainly does, in fact, take gender into account - a regrettable situation, but necessary due to the extraordinary imbalance in f:m application ratios. I may be wrong, I have no data to prove it – but if they do, I think it would be justified and reasonable. </p>
<p>So, where’s the whining in that statement? Where’s the “head-in-the-sand”?</p>
<p>My only problem is you continuing to harp on a subject what is almost certainly inconsequential and irrelevant to you, and that you only come here to be a pest. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the very real misogyny of your favorite university seems to be a topic you’d just rather ignore - and with a daughter attending grad school there, and who frequently experiences it, it <em>is</em> a subject that concerns me, and should concern you, being such a staunch defender of gender equity and all.</p>
<p>Squiddy, why you have to take someone else’s opinion on a college admissions chat board so personally is truly perplexing to me. If you have a problem with misogyny at UVA, please, by all means, go post about it on the UVA board. But this is the William & Mary board.</p>
<p>Sorry, but I never said the name UVA - what made you think I was referring to it?</p>
<p>novaparent - why did you say multiple times in your first post on this thread that W&M was not your daughter’s first choice? Please explain the relevance.</p>
<p>Also, please quote any of my responses where I was whining.</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>novaparent, remember that we serve many masters: the individual applicant, the incoming class and the institution as a whole. Therefore it’s not as simple admit this many boys and this many girls. For us, it’s about ensuring the we thoroughly review each individual application with context and a holistic approach, that we build a dynamic, diverse, talented, intellectual incoming class and that we meet the enrollment goals of our institution as a whole. Yes, thinking about the gender make-up of our class and our overall institution is a consideration as is the socioeconomic make-up, the racial and ethnic make-up, the religious make-up, the presence of athletic talent and legacy students, and a whole host of other factors that make for the type of undergraduate student body of which we are so proud. This does not make us different from a lot of other holistic, highly-selective universities. </p>
<p>Remember, holistic is a term to describe the review process and we ensure that every applicant who applies to W&M gets the same contextual, thorough, holistic review. Any applicant not admitted is going to look for reasons why. On the whole the reason someone is not admitted is not so clear. It’s truly a reflection of the fact that our pool is full of so much talent and intellect and potential that even the really great students aren’t always admitted because there are only really great students in our pool.</p>
<p>novaparent, you might want to dial-back your opinion of yourself a bit - take you personally? I don’t even take you seriously, your behavior is like that of an 8-year-old who interrupts people’s conversations saying “Look-look-look-look-whatIcando!”, and then proceeds to make armpit noises, then runs from the room. </p>
<p>I don’t take such children “personally”, but I do find them irritating in their constant demands for attention through their usually negative or, at best, obnoxious behavior.</p>
<p>Anyway, I seem to have forgotten the first rule of dealing with internet ■■■■■■, whose behavior is also quite childish, who try to provoke and irritate for no other reason than to get attention, or get a reaction. And that rule is to ignore them. </p>
<p>So …</p>
<p>"Yes, thinking about the gender make-up of our class and our overall institution is a consideration . . . "</p>
<p>Thank you, W&M Admissions, for finally answering my question. Female applicants, please take note.</p>
<p>novaparent, please keep in mind that while diversity and balance in all of its forms is important to our work, understand we do not move forward with our work looking to reject wonderfully qualified applicants of either gender simply because of their gender. Please keep that in mind. Additionally, as with any selective process, the more applicants there are the lower the admission rate generally becomes. There are more out-of-state applicants in our pool than in-state applicants and the out-of-state admission rate is lower (that of course is also impacted by the fact that only 35% of our class can be OOS residents). There are far more female applicants in our pool (our pool is more proportionally female than many of the other schools you cited) and thus the admission rate is impacted.</p>