boys in humanities - where's the bump

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Keep in mind that even if a school is accepting men and women at an equal rate, males are still enjoying an advantage — the wider female pool is more competitive to begin with.

Nah, not significantly.

Stats show otherwise, women outperform men in school (HS, MS, ES) and this has been known throughout education for literally decades.

True. Which makes smart, accomplished, healthy, ambitious young men very valuable. It's not a surprise that bright young men have an easier time with college admittances. There aren't a lot of them.

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately, smart young men often shoot themselves in the foot by applying for stereotypical male majors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Keep in mind that even if a school is accepting men and women at an equal rate, males are still enjoying an advantage — the wider female pool is more competitive to begin with.

Nah, not significantly.

Stats show otherwise, women outperform men in school (HS, MS, ES) and this has been known throughout education for literally decades.

Stats do not show that girls significantly outperform boys if at all.

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=171

Average female SAT 1043
Average male SAT 1056

https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/hstsreport/#coursetaking_1_0_el

Male/female gpa gap is 0.23 overall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get this logic either. Colleges are accepting are more female students so how is this an advantage to men?

Go back and study percentages.

out of 400 red marbles (boys) take 200
50% were accepted

Out of 800 blue marbles (girls) take 200
25 % were accepted

Next steps
out of 400 red marbles (boys) take 150
37.5% were accepted

Out of 800 blue marbles (girls) take 200
25 % were accepted
In this example, even though more girls were accepted than boys, it was harder to get in as a girl.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

OP, are you referring to the NYT article about boys being slightly favored in admissions because girls tend to present better profiles? This has been going on for decades.
Only a few boy-heavy programs favor girls, the rest favor boys.
And the article goes on to explain that some colleges and universities responded with creating a very sporty atmosphere, with the result that most intellectuals were girls, and most athletes were boys... and this was not conducive to a healthy environment on campus. It is associated with hook-up culture, where girls feel pressured into forms of relationships they don't necessarily wish.

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

My Humanities Asian son did well at W&M (got into the dual programme with St Andrews), but ultimately chose a larger university.

no, I heard this from a variety of sources and then looked at the common data set. some schools are getting 20-30% more applications from girls.

That is not relevant if you determine that they get 5000 female applicants and accept 1000 of them, and get 3000 male applicants and accept 700 of them. There are still 2300 males rejected.
In this case a female has a 20 percent chance of admission and a male has a 23 percent chance. But the gender ratio is still 58 percent female/ 42 percent male in terms of acceptances.

Applicants compete against others within there own gender for acceptances, and at small schools that are highly selective they will always have enough highly qualified boys to fill the small number of spots.

[Anonymous]

It works just like affirmative action but it's for boys.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It works just like affirmative action but it's for boys.

PP here. I don't begrudge them, but it makes things harder for girls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It works just like affirmative action but it's for boys.

Not exactly.
The boys are compared against other boys for acceptance. That is not what affirmation action is. If it a coed school you need to have about 50 percent boys for a positive experience for all students who are choosing a coed school.
Hopefully it will be a diverse coed group, but males are a must.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It works just like affirmative action but it's for boys.

Not exactly.
The boys are compared against other boys for acceptance. That is not what affirmation action is. If it a coed school you need to have about 50 percent boys for a positive experience for all students who are choosing a coed school.
Hopefully it will be a diverse coed group, but males are a must.

I know an impressive african-american student who was rejected from every highly selective college they applied to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It works just like affirmative action but it's for boys.

Not exactly.
The boys are compared against other boys for acceptance. That is not what affirmation action is. If it a coed school you need to have about 50 percent boys for a positive experience for all students who are choosing a coed school.
Hopefully it will be a diverse coed group, but males are a must.

I know an impressive african-american student who was rejected from every highly selective college they applied to.

There are a lot of impressive AA students in this world who apply to college. What is your point? Were they a girl?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It works just like affirmative action but it's for boys.

Not exactly.
The boys are compared against other boys for acceptance. That is not what affirmation action is. If it a coed school you need to have about 50 percent boys for a positive experience for all students who are choosing a coed school.
Hopefully it will be a diverse coed group, but males are a must.

I know an impressive african-american student who was rejected from every highly selective college they applied to.

There are a lot of impressive AA students in this world who apply to college. What is your point? Were they a girl?

The prior poster said the "Boy Boost" is not like affirmative action, because "boys compete against boys." My point was that even when quotas are in place, admission to the most sought after colleges is highly competitive and selective even for the most in-demand groups. That doesn't mean there's not a slight advantage to belonging to an underrepresented group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

OP, are you referring to the NYT article about boys being slightly favored in admissions because girls tend to present better profiles? This has been going on for decades.
Only a few boy-heavy programs favor girls, the rest favor boys.
And the article goes on to explain that some colleges and universities responded with creating a very sporty atmosphere, with the result that most intellectuals were girls, and most athletes were boys... and this was not conducive to a healthy environment on campus. It is associated with hook-up culture, where girls feel pressured into forms of relationships they don't necessarily wish.

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

My Humanities Asian son did well at W&M (got into the dual programme with St Andrews), but ultimately chose a larger university.

no, I heard this from a variety of sources and then looked at the common data set. some schools are getting 20-30% more applications from girls.

That is not relevant if you determine that they get 5000 female applicants and accept 1000 of them, and get 3000 male applicants and accept 700 of them. There are still 2300 males rejected.
In this case a female has a 20 percent chance of admission and a male has a 23 percent chance. But the gender ratio is still 58 percent female/ 42 percent male in terms of acceptances.

Applicants compete against others within there own gender for acceptances, and at small schools that are highly selective they will always have enough highly qualified boys to fill the small number of spots.

I understand this but it was already pointed out

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Keep in mind that even if a school is accepting men and women at an equal rate, males are still enjoying an advantage — the wider female pool is more competitive to begin with.

Nah, not significantly.

Stats show otherwise, women outperform men in school (HS, MS, ES) and this has been known throughout education for literally decades.

True. Which makes smart, accomplished, healthy, ambitious young men very valuable. It's not a surprise that bright young men have an easier time with college admittances. There aren't a lot of them.

Yep at most schools it is 3 or 4 to 1. I can see it going a lot higher. No one really cares or if they do it’s just how this impacts women. These men will be in very high demand with a lot of women(college educated or not).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

OP, are you referring to the NYT article about boys being slightly favored in admissions because girls tend to present better profiles? This has been going on for decades.
Only a few boy-heavy programs favor girls, the rest favor boys.
And the article goes on to explain that some colleges and universities responded with creating a very sporty atmosphere, with the result that most intellectuals were girls, and most athletes were boys... and this was not conducive to a healthy environment on campus. It is associated with hook-up culture, where girls feel pressured into forms of relationships they don't necessarily wish.

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

My Humanities Asian son did well at W&M (got into the dual programme with St Andrews), but ultimately chose a larger university.

no, I heard this from a variety of sources and then looked at the common data set. some schools are getting 20-30% more applications from girls.

That is not relevant if you determine that they get 5000 female applicants and accept 1000 of them, and get 3000 male applicants and accept 700 of them. There are still 2300 males rejected.
In this case a female has a 20 percent chance of admission and a male has a 23 percent chance. But the gender ratio is still 58 percent female/ 42 percent male in terms of acceptances.

Applicants compete against others within there own gender for acceptances, and at small schools that are highly selective they will always have enough highly qualified boys to fill the small number of spots.

Most people don’t seem to recognize this. You have to dig into the Common Data Sets and crunch the numbers, ideally over multiple years. Yes boys are competing within a smaller pool but there is a myth that many schools are “easy” admits for male applicants. The differential is actually fairly small in many cases.


idea that

[Anonymous]

Are there any statistics how many applications are sent in for boys vs girls? Maybe girls apply to more schools.

-Just throwing this thought out there.