General admission bias in favor of male applicants

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Equity" at work. Trying to achieve "balance" instead of just going with the best candidates.

What do you do then if your student body is 80% mostly middle class, white or asian, female applicants?
I am all for an academic meritocracy, but if all colleges do this, what are the consequences on society for the next generations?
The article tries to get at this.

I understand we are in a patriarchy. It's hard to accept that we need men in college, even if they don't do as well in school as women. Why would we give them a break if they don't have the best academic profiles as a group, and if the people at the top are mostly all men anyway? But then what do you when hardly any men go on to graduate college, and take menial positions in society?

It would be a very interesting experiment, but perhaps not with the result you have in mind.

PP you're responding to. Fair points. My first inclination to answer your question was "yes, of course that's fine" but that is some food for thought. I doubt it is that skewed though. It's 55/45 or 60/40 ok? And why not try to address the problem at elementary age instead?

I actually doubt men will end up taking menial positions just because they don't go to college. There are lot of very high paying jobs that men are more likely to take than women. There was the recent thread about UPS drivers earning 6 figures. There's plumbing and contracting and electrical work. Police and Corrections may not require college. And you could also see new industries develop, like the coding explosion where many programmars were self-taught. Women can do all these jobs of course, but don't tend to go into them in high numbers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/magazine/men-college-enrollment.html

‘There Was Definitely a Thumb on the Scale to Get Boys’
Declining male enrollment has led many colleges to adopt an unofficial policy: affirmative action for men.

According to the article, it's pervasive at the majority of colleges, since most of them wish to be within waving distance of gender parity.

Take-aways:
1. Girls overachieving in school compared to boys (a fact of life since the 1980s) actually hurts them in college admissions, since they need a better application profile to be considered on an equal footing with boys.
2. Colleges try to appeal to boys: one way is to provide more college sports, which then ensures that a significant proportion of boys are recruited athletes, which then has an impact on school culture: academic girls, less-academic boys.
3. Gender imbalance on campus counter-intuitively can trigger a scarcity dating mindset, which means that women may believe they need to accept all sorts of things they might not have accepted had the pool of available dates been larger. On other words, hook-up culture.
4. In the wider world, the implications of fewer men graduating than women is concerning as well: some people are worried about the group of males without college degrees who may be unable to earn enough to support a family, and may not find a wife or have kids, possibly leading to toxic masculinity issues.
5. Finally, the article raises the question of what our broader conversation should be surrounding privilege and who has access to college, if the real beneficiaries of affirmative action are males?

Too bad the SCOTUS said that sort it thing is illegal now

[Anonymous]

The thing is though that high school and middle school favors girls because they go through puberty earlier and that leads to changes in the brain that are advantageous for doing well in school. Boys do catch up eventually, but the current system does make them look like weaker college applicants (esp now that it is so competitive to get into top colleges).

[Anonymous]

"5. Finally, the article raises the question of what our broader conversation should be surrounding privilege and who has access to college, if the real beneficiaries of affirmative action are males?"

The NYT never addresses what the real issue is - resource hoarding of the 1%, the truly "privileged". I thought that series of articles today in the NYT was a total distraction. What we need is more equitable taxation of wealth in addition to a truly revolutionary change in which our society thinks about poor people and addressing their needs, but I'm not holding my breath for the NYT to write about that. As long as the 1% controls the conversation and baits us with internecine conflict amongst ourselves, nothing will change. Admissions at a group of selective colleges will barely move the needle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Invest in engineering, CS and business and don't have to worry about a gender imbalance. UMD is 52% male.

Do you understand what college admissions might have had to do to achieve parity?
Because I think you missed the point of the article, PP.
The gender percentages you're seeing is AFTER the sausage was made.

I skimmed it. Tulane needs to adapt. Half a$$ CS program (a second "major" is required) and only TWO (biomedical and chemical) engineering fields. They don't even have an accounting major in the business school.

Because males are only, or primarily, interested solely in CS, engineering, math and business? OK then.

Stereotyping much?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Invest in engineering, CS and business and don't have to worry about a gender imbalance. UMD is 52% male.

Do you understand what college admissions might have had to do to achieve parity?
Because I think you missed the point of the article, PP.
The gender percentages you're seeing is AFTER the sausage was made.

I skimmed it. Tulane needs to adapt. Half a$$ CS program (a second "major" is required) and only TWO (biomedical and chemical) engineering fields. They don't even have an accounting major in the business school.

Because males are only, or primarily, interested solely in CS, engineering, math and business? OK then.

Stereotyping much?

[Anonymous]

Go out and earn the big bucks, ladies!!

You got watch you wanted. Breadwinner time.

[Anonymous]

There is a finite number of male college applicants/attendees. The colleges are twisting themselves to get the best ones. Schools with majors that appeal to lots of male applicants have less of a problem. This is not creating more college students and it is not reducing the number of college students, it is about the allocation of the college students. The elite private colleges have more qualified applicants than slots so they can adjust standards among the qualified applicants to get the gender ratio they want.

Making applications test optional has zero to do with this.

Yes, it is an issue on many fronts. It’s a version of the inverse impact of the one baby law in china on the number of eligible women available.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/magazine/men-college-enrollment.html

‘There Was Definitely a Thumb on the Scale to Get Boys’
Declining male enrollment has led many colleges to adopt an unofficial policy: affirmative action for men.

According to the article, it's pervasive at the majority of colleges, since most of them wish to be within waving distance of gender parity.

Take-aways:
1. Girls overachieving in school compared to boys (a fact of life since the 1980s) actually hurts them in college admissions, since they need a better application profile to be considered on an equal footing with boys.
2. Colleges try to appeal to boys: one way is to provide more college sports, which then ensures that a significant proportion of boys are recruited athletes, which then has an impact on school culture: academic girls, less-academic boys.
3. Gender imbalance on campus counter-intuitively can trigger a scarcity dating mindset, which means that women may believe they need to accept all sorts of things they might not have accepted had the pool of available dates been larger. On other words, hook-up culture.
4. In the wider world, the implications of fewer men graduating than women is concerning as well: some people are worried about the group of males without college degrees who may be unable to earn enough to support a family, and may not find a wife or have kids, possibly leading to toxic masculinity issues.
5. Finally, the article raises the question of what our broader conversation should be surrounding privilege and who has access to college, if the real beneficiaries of affirmative action are males?

Well this have a big impact on college education women- dating and marriage. The few men on campus will be outnumbered by women 2 or 3 to 1.Those numbers only get worst because college education men will still date and marry non college graduates.

I wonder how this gender imbalance will change the social dynamics in this subset of women. They will have to be a lot more aggressive because let’s face not every male who is college educated is a winner. This is most likely the end of college education SAHMs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Equity" at work. Trying to achieve "balance" instead of just going with the best candidates.

Yes, and that is a good thing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Equity" at work. Trying to achieve "balance" instead of just going with the best candidates.

What do you do then if your student body is 80% mostly middle class, white or asian, female applicants?
I am all for an academic meritocracy, but if all colleges do this, what are the consequences on society for the next generations?
The article tries to get at this.

I understand we are in a patriarchy. It's hard to accept that we need men in college, even if they don't do as well in school as women. Why would we give them a break if they don't have the best academic profiles as a group, and if the people at the top are mostly all men anyway? But then what do you when hardly any men go on to graduate college, and take menial positions in society?

It would be a very interesting experiment, but perhaps not with the result you have in mind.

+1. It doesn’t even have to be an experiment. It’s already happening. Just look at the black community and how the lack of eligible men is having ontheir families.

[Anonymous]

The problem isn't test optional, the problem is the way grading occurs throughout K12, especially in high school. But, test optional may exacerbate this to the extent that scores now play a more limited role than before.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Go out and earn the big bucks, ladies!!

You got watch you wanted. Breadwinner time.

As long as you sterilize the breast pump stuff and register the 4 year old for a series of engaging yet nurturing camps during the summer you have a deal!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wharton UG still gives a massive boost to female applicants.

A lot of the above article is due to test scores being optional

Men still outscore women on mcat, lsat, gmat, sat

This trend started well before test optional was widespread. You think Tulane’s class flipped to 67% women just in the last three years?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"5. Finally, the article raises the question of what our broader conversation should be surrounding privilege and who has access to college, if the real beneficiaries of affirmative action are males?"

The NYT never addresses what the real issue is - resource hoarding of the 1%, the truly "privileged". I thought that series of articles today in the NYT was a total distraction. What we need is more equitable taxation of wealth in addition to a truly revolutionary change in which our society thinks about poor people and addressing their needs, but I'm not holding my breath for the NYT to write about that. As long as the 1% controls the conversation and baits us with internecine conflict amongst ourselves, nothing will change. Admissions at a group of selective colleges will barely move the needle.

I am always amused at the economic ignorance of so many. We don't tax wealth. We tax income. A wealth tax has been tried. Take France for example. It imposed a wealth tax, but had to scale it back because the significant capital outflows put a material burden on the middle class. A wealth tax only works if it is implemented globally, which, of course, is unrealistic. So I assume what you meant is that we need higher taxation on income. This is an often mentioned narrative of the progressive class. One thing I don't ever really receive an answer to from progressives is whether higher marginal taxes on income impact economic productivity. I doubt I will hear a meaningful answer here.

My mentor in law school was an esteemed tax professor who was the spouse of perhaps our most famous Supreme Court Justice in the last four decades. I recall talking to him in a social setting and his mention of being a consultant to a Scandanavian country with high marginal tax rates. He motioned to his cohort to look out at the harbor see all of the yachts moored there. He queried how could that be, given the high marginal tax rates? Of course the answer is that the tax base is relatively narrow, and statistically invariably becomes narrower when income tax rates increase. The relevant governments (mostly progressive) like this because it increases their importance in terms of doling out favors. This is not to say that there is not room for marginal tax increases, but rather that a fairly sophisticated discussion has to occur about the follow on impacts of doing so. And if taxes get high enough, the wealthy - likely today at $20M or net worth above, don't have difficulty finding tax avoidance or mitigation or deferral strategies. Sorry to ruin your day.