<p>Itstoomuch, I have four daughters, two of whom are college age (they don't go to a LAC, but a university, not that it matters). They are kind, beautiful, honorable, and intelligent. They have wonderful friends (girls and boys) who do not pigeonhole them into the labels of princesses, dogs, or "b"s. Thank God.</p>
<p>I hope they find someone, who, as in the poem by W.B. Yeats, "When You are Old," "loves the pilgrim Soul in you/ And loved the sorrows of your changing face." </p>
<p>This all brings to mind a long-forgotten memory from my days at a LAC. I was 17-years old when I received a personal invitation to a fraternity party. Wow, was I excited. When it turned out that ALL of the freshman girls got invitations, my roommate and I still naively geared up for the party with great expectations. We didn't suspect anything until we were herded up, single file, past a giant keg of grain alcohol. A frat boy on the roof of the huge, Southern-style mansion had a placard with a number on it. The boy yelled out a number and flashed the corresponding card as each freshman girl promenaded up the walkway. (I later learned this was called "Cattle Call," and the numbers went from one to ten.) </p>
<p>My roommate, a shy, slight girl with glasses, was labeled as a "2." I guess she was one of those "dogs" you talk about. Somehow, mercifully, I missed my number. </p>
<p>That night my roommate cried in her bed. We never talked about the incident. It was too embarrasssing.</p>
<p>Love the calculation of ratios! Of course, a female can do the same kind of calculation about males: so many % too short, so many dorks, so many immature, so many plain ugly (yeh, it counts for guys, too), so many plain dumb, and soon you run out of datable guys. That was true even when women were in the minority in college. And let's not speak of grad school!</p>
<p>Well, I'm not going to worry about my Ss' love life. It's their love life, not mine.</p>
<p>Most of this thread is giving reasons about why men are not choosing to go to LACs, but is there anything wrong with that? I can see that the straight women would have trouble finding dates, but if that was such a big deal, then they should have done their research on the school before. Is there anything really wrong with less men wanting to go to LACs?</p>
<p>"The UW's Honors Academy is a pilot summer program designed to combat the national and state trend of boys falling further and further behind girls in aspiring to and getting a college education. "This is a serious dilemma with regard to boys, especially boys of color, who are absolutely not thriving and are just falling through the cracks," said Thomas Calhoun Jr., executive director of the Gear Up program at the UW, which is running the academy. For decades, women have been going to college in greater numbers than men, and that gap continues to widen.</p>
<p>In public institutions, the percentage of men enrolled in college hit an all-time low of 43.4 percent in 2002, the latest year for which that information was available. Locally, nearly twice as many girls as boys applied for a Gates Foundation scholarship."</p>
<p>I think that it's legal. For instance, there are plenty of summer programs especially in math and the sciences that are for girls only because they are so underrepresented in those fields.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Virtually all LACs have trouble attracting guys. Take your pick. </p>
<p>The problem is that most guys aren't interested in LACs. If you're fortunate to have a guy who is, then they have a better chance of being accepted and of getting merit aid (if the college offers it) than would a female with a similar background.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>On the flip side, schools that specialize in science and technology have absolutely no problem in attracting guys, and in fact you could say that they attract TOO many guys. Take any school that ends in the words "Institute of Technology", and you will inevitably find a handy surplus of guys trying to get in. </p>
<p>
[quote]
I think that the many men find high profile teams at big schools attractive.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't know how strong of a factor that is. MIT and Caltech don't seem to have too much trouble attracting plenty of guys despite the lack of major sports programs. Heck, a lot of guys (and girls) would love to attend Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, despite a lack of bigtime sports.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The boy yelled out a number and flashed the corresponding card as each freshman girl promenaded up the walkway. (I later learned this was called "Cattle Call," and the numbers went from one to ten.)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Ugh! </p>
<p>I remember reading about a similar practice at Harvard's Freshman Union (their old dining hall) back in the 1970s. It wasn't a matter of choosing to attend a frat party that subjected women to such indignity. Simply going to lunch or dinner in the dining hall forced freshman women to run through this demeaning and dehumanizing gauntlet.</p>
<p>Eventually Harvard set up policies on sexual harassment and I'm sure the practice would not be acceptable today.</p>
<p>Even so, it was only a couple years ago that a Harvard student set up a facesmash.com website, which showed Harvard student photos (hacked from Harvard's internal house on-line facebooks without the students' permission) and offered websurfers the opportunity to "rate" them for their looks.</p>
<p>Within just a few hours, 450 students went on-line to make ratings of 22,000 photos before the ensuing protest and outrage led the site's creator to shut the website down.</p>
<p>That website's creator, Mark Zuckerberg, ultimately turned his talents to something less controversial and did so with great commercial success---facebook.com.</p>
<p>I don't understand the apparently ubiquitous and difficult-to-resist impulse to numerically and impersonally rate other people on their looks.</p>
<p>My Ss sounds like tsdad's S. Considered big time sports, but not on the list of 'must-have'. They simply wanted bigger and more diverse than high school.</p>
<p>Dunno marite, I have one friend Yale UG, Harvard MBA. According to her, the majority of her female Harvard MBA class isn't working at all--unless you count volunteer work. Her husband kids her that she brings that hi-power knowledge-- to coaching their five year old son's soccer team. </p>
<p>I forget the stats of the drop-outs--but they were surprisingly high. That world is not as friendly to working moms as academia and architecture?</p>
<p>My feeling is that a lot of high-powered women do drop out for a bit out of the corporate world for a combination of reasons, one of which is motherhood. But I also think that after a few years of competitive parenting, they get back into the money-making world. It may not be the corporate world; it is more likely to be entrepreneurial. We need to look at this phenomenon in the longer term.</p>
<p>Marite, interestingly, this happens much less often after medical school and residency. It is not uncommon for women to work "half-time" during child-bearing years...this generally means 40 h/week (rather than the usual 80-100 hrs) with little or no call, but women rarely drop out entirely. Also, the lower ranks of academic medicine are filled with women, primarily because the hours are lighter and there is less call than in private practice...but still not many women in the upper ranks of academia. Probably because we DON'T spend 24 h/day getting grant money and producing publications but rather are at home with our kids. Also, when women are ready to return to "full-time" they head out to private practice to make some money!</p>
<p>Marite, that may be your feeling, but the reality doesn't bear this out. The cottage industries of Mom run cafes or kids clothing stores, or work-out/pilates businesses have bankruptcy rates higher than even the small business world in general (where failure rates are astronomical). The likelihood that these mom will decide of their own accord to go back into the work force is very slim; the reality is that divorce, death of the spouse, etc. is what forces them back into the work force, and then at salaries which are greatly reduced from what they were earning previously. Their pensions take a hit; it's tough to miss 10 years of contributions just when you're turning 50 or whatever and need to think about retirement.</p>
<p>The oft quoted statistic on women earning 65 cents to every male earned dollar (or whatever the current stat is) is based on women's reduced earning power from leaving the workforce, not because a woman gets paid less to do the same job as a man. The fiction that these women have lots of options once the kids go back to school isn't borne out by reality.... at least not if the woman needs to earn a real salary, and not just some part-time earnings to cover the incidentals.</p>
<p>Cheers, another thought about women dropping out of the corporate world. A lot of ambitious women went to law and business schools because these seemed to be the last bastion to crack; but after a few years, they realized they did not enjoy it. Whether they dropped out of the world of work entirely is not known. In Southeast Asian countries many small businesses are run by women; but once the structure is corporate. men tend to be in charge. There may be something anout the corporate structure that is either not friendly to women or that is less suited to their temperament. Makes me think of Sloan Wilson's The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. But I have a male friend who went into intenational banking. He did extremely well for a few years then quit; he could not stand the pressure.</p>
<p>Marite: I originally ran the stats for us, males. The elmination categories got to be very large and the numbers, depressing. The number of available and good males appears to be a negative value , which I am fairly sure most women already know (My spouse reminds me everyday). But since there are a few good men around (CC posters) then the number can not be negative. A paradox. </p>
<p>So I wanted to have more fun; I ran the formula for the Figures. Much prettier and I was sure to push some buttons.</p>
<p>You may be right that some moms are pushed back into working; but I was talking entirely of the high-powered Harvard MBA types only. It's true, too, that many small businesses flounder, but that's besides the point, which is that many women prefer to work for themselves.</p>
<p>One of the most successful bakers in the Boston area is a Harvard graduate in economics; I believe she graduated magna or summa. I can't remember whether she joined the corporate world after graduating or not. I know her bread is consistently voted "best." It looks as though she brings to baking the same intensity some might bring to making deals.</p>
<p>My friends would now be in their late 40s, having delayed childbearing until their late 30s. They are not going back.</p>
<p>I wouldn't put lawyers into the same basket. Heaps of female lawyers manage to combine family and high powered career. Doctors too.</p>
<p>This phenomena is peculiar to MBA...well worth consideration by female students, an honest appraisal of the odds. I do the same thing when someone asks me about architecture school. If you are not a high-conflict female extrovert, architecture is not going to be the most rewarding career. </p>
<p>My hugely successful corporate women friends do not have children.</p>
<p>I have male friends who quit investment banking too. One sold his hedge fund for $40M and the other made something close to $1B before he retired to philanthropy.</p>
<p>Cheers, you put architecture and academe in the category of friendly to women. As a professor of architecture, and a former practicing architect I think I can speak to these career choices. Academe is very conducive to children, your schedule can be arranged to allow a great deal of flxibility and varying loads. Architecture does not have that flexibility unless you are practicing on your own or as a principle. If you are looking for a supplemental income it's fine and workable but if you need to support yourself or family with your salary the hours are horrendous. It does allow us to keep in touch with the field, if we wish, but it's not as simple as professions that might allow you to work part-time in a professional capacity. If you're in an office you're there until the job is done.</p>
<p>I think the women who are now in their 40s were part of the first or second wave of women who went in large numbers into B schools, law schools, etc... and had unrealistic notions of the costs and rewards of the careers they had chosen. I knew some of these young women, and they were almost entirely focused on the fact that they had gotten in, what a triumph. They were of the generations who "wanted it all." It would be interesting to follow the careers of women who went to B-school or law school in the 90s.</p>
<p>Yes, indeed, cheers. I'm a doctor/mom who took a total of 3 weeks maternity leave after my c-section 16 years ago but who chose academia for the flexibility it offers...especially since my subspecialty is one of those that demands 100 h work weeks in private practice. The result? I have been an assistant professor for a long time in a non-tenure track and am going nowhere fast. My sister, on the other hand, is a hugely successful lawyer/VP of a large corporation and has no kids. A choice on the part of her and her husband. We each made our choices and I'm happy with mine.</p>