Is the boy:girl ratio at the liberal arts colleges a deterrent at all?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is JMU still way off kilter?

yes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most of the top liberal arts colleges are close to 50/50

What about schools that are a bit more attainable? Any state schools?

[Anonymous]

What about schools that are a bit more attainable? Any state schools?

Look at LAC that offer engineering majors: Union 53% male, Lehigh 54% male and Lafayette 49% male

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It matters for admission. It is harder for females to get in to the schools where the ratio is more pronounced. Conn College for example.

How did you come to this conclusion? I'm the PP who looked into this and the stats from Conn College's 2020 Common Data Set suggest otherwise. 59% of applicants were women, 65% of accepted students were women, and 62% of the entering class were women. Obviously this doesn't show whether *more* female applicants were more highly qualified than male applicants, but it does show that on average Conn College accepted a higher proportion of female applicants than male applicants. So it's not obvious that it's harder to get in as a woman, and it may actually be easier to get in.

I was surprised that this is pretty consistent with many schools - there are more female applicants all around and for many schools that translates to more female admits and more female entering students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of the top liberal arts colleges are close to 50/50

as has already been pointed out. read much?

One person made the same point and I missed that. But thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It matters for admission. It is harder for females to get in to the schools where the ratio is more pronounced. Conn College for example.

How did you come to this conclusion? I'm the PP who looked into this and the stats from Conn College's 2020 Common Data Set suggest otherwise. 59% of applicants were women, 65% of accepted students were women, and 62% of the entering class were women. Obviously this doesn't show whether *more* female applicants were more highly qualified than male applicants, but it does show that on average Conn College accepted a higher proportion of female applicants than male applicants. So it's not obvious that it's harder to get in as a woman, and it may actually be easier to get in.

I was surprised that this is pretty consistent with many schools - there are more female applicants all around and for many schools that translates to more female admits and more female entering students.

You're right you can't conclude from that data that it's harder to get in as a girl, but everyone I know in admissions says point blank that it is. Girls are generally stronger candidates than boys. That holds true at every level, from very competitive colleges to less competitive ones.

[Anonymous]

I went to school in an area with way more college-aged women than college-aged men and saw multitudes of women date men who were not in their league at all. I would definitely think twice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Any off-the-top examples of decent schools with more of a 50/50 breakdown?

Swarthmore 49/51
Amherst 48/52
Williams 50/50
Bowdoin 49/51
Carnegie Mellon 50/50
Princeton 49/51
Dartmouth 51/49
Mit 52/48

Just a few….

Go to a good school and it’ll be 50/50

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of the top liberal arts colleges are close to 50/50

What about schools that are a bit more attainable? Any state schools?

Penn state main campus is 53/47 male

[Anonymous]

Michigan and Indiana are both 50/50.

[Anonymous]

UVA is 56% female, which is more imbalanced than my son’s SLAC.

[Anonymous]

The most sought after schools have the luxury of emphasizing both grades/stats and gender. However, less sought after schools are at the mercy of current demographic - more women are attending college than men - and major trends - a lot of boys want CS or engineering while many girls still want traditional liberal arts majors. Thus, the boy/girl ratio gets particularly lopsided at less selective schools, liberal arts schools, and technical colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of the top liberal arts colleges are close to 50/50

as has already been pointed out. read much?

Actually most of the SLACs are about half and half now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UVA is 56% female, which is more imbalanced than my son’s SLAC.

That’s because UVA must take two-thirds of their students from VA. If that constraint didn’t exist, they could balance the gender, especially with 50,000 applicants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is JMU still way off kilter?

yes

It’s not really. It’s 42% male. University of Georgia is also 42% male. University of Florida is 43% male and UT Austin is 44%. The fact is there are way fewer men enrolling in colleges; only the very top schools can be assured of being able to get gender balance.