What SHOULD the top 50-75 colleges do in their marketing to attract more men to attend to improve gender ratios?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's not the colleges. Something is very wrong with the young, mostly white, male population in this country. They just aren't motivated. I don't know what happened.

But at the top levels, men are doing just fine. There are lots of smart, healthy, motivated, kind, and well-adjusted men at Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Stanford, Duke, Michigan, Rice, Chicago, MIT, Texas, and Georgia Tech. Some might be a little on the nerdier side, but most men at these schools are doing very well and are a benefit to any community. And I think all those schools are close to 50-50, though Georgia Tech will skew a little more male.

There does seem to be a missing middle though among young men today. But more video games is definitely not the answer. Nor is dropping academic standards to get them to go to certain colleges. We need to deal with education and socialization issues at the elementary and middle school levels. The college level is too late to address these issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My highly motivated male finds the female dating pool equally disappointing. They are not interested in partiers or those obsessed with social media and the like. They are at a top school, so even there it limits the options.

I think worse than the partier social media obsessed girls are the ones who are so political that they only want to date some combo of far left beliefs with 100% political agreement conformity, and guys that look good on social media.

Teaching your girls that only one cluster of political beliefs and 100% political agreement is a non negotiable will significantly reduce their dating options. There are soooo many wonderful guys that they are missing out on meeting, due to recent polarizing attitudes.

You want your sons and daughters to have a positive dating life, go back to raising them like an 80s or 90s teen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Essays from boys are going to be far inferior to girls and that is the major stumbling block.

As a female Georgia AO told us, "ask a girl to write how pretty she is and she will whip out 4 paragraphs. Boys need to take the same attitude."

Teenage boys dont write about feelings like girls do. And AO's want teenagers to pour their heart out in essays. This is like pulling teeth out for boys.

Maybe don't generalize? My sons wrote beautiful essays.

There are always exceptions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel bad for my DD who is a strong candidate for top 75 and wants to be in an intellectually stimulating enviro with lots of impressive straight men who are equally strong to date. What kinds of outreach should the top 75 schools be doing with strong male candidates to make their ratios closer to 50-50 or even 55-45 (and not 60-40 or 65-35 or worse)?

Our straight daughters deserve better than recruited squash players and recruited lax bros who barely passed their academic pre-reads.

What about open houses run by male AOs with video-game themes? More profiles of outstanding male students on brochures (my DD's college brochures she gets in the mail feature majority women)? Webinar or student panels which are at least 50-50 women-men. I was at panels at BU, Pomona, USC and Tufts where the student panels were all female and the tour guides were all women except for one lonely male. That doesn't give a reassuring signal to prospective male students so I can understand why they go elsewhere.

Additional ED3 round with later deadline for males (since they are slower to develop)?

The boys need to sign up for this stuff and get out of bed on Saturday morning. Again, it’s not that they’re being rejected from these panels, they don’t want to participate in the first place.

We toured BC recently. They also had an all female student panel, which was pointed out by my son. They were all lovely and very impressive. But it is hard for a 17 year old boy to picture day to day social life at a school when the woman are talking about their experience on the dance team, shopping on Newbury Street on the weekends and getting boba with friends.

Our panel at BC was very similar. My DS scratched it off his list.

Agree.

Sons had similar experiences at other schools

+1 Cornell.

What’s wrong with the male students on these campuses? Why are they less visible or involved than their female peers? I don’t get it.

The girls can be fairly rigid. They care so much more about who looks good on social media and can be very cutting about it.

Plus, you forget that at the peak of the Me Too movement, it morphed from something desperately needed to girls at colleges making thing up and publicly shaming guys in social media for awkward dates or insufficiently desirable young men daring to ask them out. Seeing this happen to a few guys made the nicer guys hesitate to put themselves out there and ask girls out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh shut up. There’s a gender imbalance at all colleges not just the top ones.

Actually- not at the top ones (T1-T20)- they get enough qualified males that they can keep their ratios fairly equal.

It becomes a problem T50-60 and below.

Because men can still make more $ without a college degree in many cases. They aren't going into teaching and other professions they require undergrad to even start. They are truckers, manufacturing, other trades, police, military. All that can get them 50k to start without college debt. It's an ROI decision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh shut up. There’s a gender imbalance at all colleges not just the top ones.

Actually- not at the top ones (T1-T20)- they get enough qualified males that they can keep their ratios fairly equal.

It becomes a problem T50-60 and below.

Because men can still make more $ without a college degree in many cases. They aren't going into teaching and other professions they require undergrad to even start. They are truckers, manufacturing, other trades, police, military. All that can get them 50k to start without college debt. It's an ROI decision.

Except…many men aren’t going to college or learning a trade or joining the police. Thats why the median income for those with just high school is fairly low…it’s not $50k.

Women also can learn a trade or go into nursing or join the police BTW.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh shut up. There’s a gender imbalance at all colleges not just the top ones.

Actually- not at the top ones (T1-T20)- they get enough qualified males that they can keep their ratios fairly equal.

It becomes a problem T50-60 and below.

Because men can still make more $ without a college degree in many cases. They aren't going into teaching and other professions they require undergrad to even start. They are truckers, manufacturing, other trades, police, military. All that can get them 50k to start without college debt. It's an ROI decision.

Except…many men aren’t going to college or learning a trade or joining the police. Thats why the median income for those with just high school is fairly low…it’s not $50k.

Women also can learn a trade or go into nursing or join the police BTW.

And…I’m not sure that a dude just walks into a trade asking $50k & gets it.

Median trucker salary is $57k & highest 10% (aka, not most) make $78k+: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/heavy-and-tractor-trailer-truck-drivers.htm#tab-5

Plumbers are better at $62k median & highest 10% (again, no where near most) $105k+
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/plumbers-pipefitters-and-steamfitters.htm#tab-5

Compared with mechanical engineers (a job that might appeal to a guy that likes learning how things work), the same stats are $102k & $161k+

Or Construction manager at $107k & $177k respectively.

Doing a gap year to save money or starting with associates & attending a local university could be well worth the investment.

(Coming from a family of trades people & UPS drivers: they made decent money to support their families & its honest work but their bodies are wrecked and *none* of them-I’ve got many uncles- encouraged their kids to enter trades & all of them saved as best they could for a college education

[Anonymous]

Oops forgot construction manager link; https://www.bls.gov/ooh/management/construction-managers.htm#tab-5

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not the colleges. Something is very wrong with the young, mostly white, male population in this country. They just aren't motivated. I don't know what happened.

But at the top levels, men are doing just fine. There are lots of smart, healthy, motivated, kind, and well-adjusted men at Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Stanford, Duke, Michigan, Rice, Chicago, MIT, Texas, and Georgia Tech. Some might be a little on the nerdier side, but most men at these schools are doing very well and are a benefit to any community. And I think all those schools are close to 50-50, though Georgia Tech will skew a little more male.

There does seem to be a missing middle though among young men today. But more video games is definitely not the answer. Nor is dropping academic standards to get them to go to certain colleges. We need to deal with education and socialization issues at the elementary and middle school levels. The college level is too late to address these issues.

I have three brothers. One graduated from one of the schools you mentioned and is now unemployed living at home, playing video games. One dropped out of college, learned a trade and makes a ton of money but wastes his spare time on video games. And one graduated from a state school and is an expat in China living it up with many girlfriends. So none of the three are husband material.
I am trying to make my boys better than that but on DCUM if you limit gaming you're making your kid an outcast. What's the solution?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not the colleges. Something is very wrong with the young, mostly white, male population in this country. They just aren't motivated. I don't know what happened.

But at the top levels, men are doing just fine. There are lots of smart, healthy, motivated, kind, and well-adjusted men at Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Stanford, Duke, Michigan, Rice, Chicago, MIT, Texas, and Georgia Tech. Some might be a little on the nerdier side, but most men at these schools are doing very well and are a benefit to any community. And I think all those schools are close to 50-50, though Georgia Tech will skew a little more male.

There does seem to be a missing middle though among young men today. But more video games is definitely not the answer. Nor is dropping academic standards to get them to go to certain colleges. We need to deal with education and socialization issues at the elementary and middle school levels. The college level is too late to address these issues.

I have three brothers. One graduated from one of the schools you mentioned and is now unemployed living at home, playing video games. One dropped out of college, learned a trade and makes a ton of money but wastes his spare time on video games. And one graduated from a state school and is an expat in China living it up with many girlfriends. So none of the three are husband material.
I am trying to make my boys better than that but on DCUM if you limit gaming you're making your kid an outcast. What's the solution?

How is the 2nd one not husband material? And the 1st one would be if he got a job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not the colleges. Something is very wrong with the young, mostly white, male population in this country. They just aren't motivated. I don't know what happened.

But at the top levels, men are doing just fine. There are lots of smart, healthy, motivated, kind, and well-adjusted men at Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Stanford, Duke, Michigan, Rice, Chicago, MIT, Texas, and Georgia Tech. Some might be a little on the nerdier side, but most men at these schools are doing very well and are a benefit to any community. And I think all those schools are close to 50-50, though Georgia Tech will skew a little more male.

There does seem to be a missing middle though among young men today. But more video games is definitely not the answer. Nor is dropping academic standards to get them to go to certain colleges. We need to deal with education and socialization issues at the elementary and middle school levels. The college level is too late to address these issues.

I have three brothers. One graduated from one of the schools you mentioned and is now unemployed living at home, playing video games. One dropped out of college, learned a trade and makes a ton of money but wastes his spare time on video games. And one graduated from a state school and is an expat in China living it up with many girlfriends. So none of the three are husband material.
I am trying to make my boys better than that but on DCUM if you limit gaming you're making your kid an outcast. What's the solution?

How is the 2nd one not husband material? And the 1st one would be if he got a job.

Circling back to an earlier post, he is probably more conservative and also not Instagramable, which immediately puts him on the enormous swipe left pile for most young women.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel bad for my DD who is a strong candidate for top 75 and wants to be in an intellectually stimulating enviro with lots of impressive straight men who are equally strong to date. What kinds of outreach should the top 75 schools be doing with strong male candidates to make their ratios closer to 50-50 or even 55-45 (and not 60-40 or 65-35 or worse)?

Our straight daughters deserve better than recruited squash players and recruited lax bros who barely passed their academic pre-reads.

What about open houses run by male AOs with video-game themes? More profiles of outstanding male students on brochures (my DD's college brochures she gets in the mail feature majority women)? Webinar or student panels which are at least 50-50 women-men. I was at panels at BU, Pomona, USC and Tufts where the student panels were all female and the tour guides were all women except for one lonely male. That doesn't give a reassuring signal to prospective male students so I can understand why they go elsewhere.

Additional ED3 round with later deadline for males (since they are slower to develop)?

The boys need to sign up for this stuff and get out of bed on Saturday morning. Again, it’s not that they’re being rejected from these panels, they don’t want to participate in the first place.

We toured BC recently. They also had an all female student panel, which was pointed out by my son. They were all lovely and very impressive. But it is hard for a 17 year old boy to picture day to day social life at a school when the woman are talking about their experience on the dance team, shopping on Newbury Street on the weekends and getting boba with friends.

Our panel at BC was very similar. My DS scratched it off his list.

Agree.

Sons had similar experiences at other schools

Honestly, most of the tours aren't very good if you are an average boy. My boys are back to back, class of 2025 and class of 2026. We went on probably 15 tours over the last few years. We toured big schools and small schools but mostly big schools. Most of them had tour guides that they couldn't identify with. The one tour that was a home run was Furman. Boy 2 loved it because of the two tour guides. Both male, one white and one black. Regular kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She’d be lucky to get a squash bro. Lots of those kids are pretty smart. The ones who want to go a school bc there were good video game themes seem less appealing

I live in Silicon Valley. All the bright, ambitious men here play a lot of video games. It's part of the DNA and you're weird and can't connect to male peers if you don't.

Neither of my sons spend much time with video games. We limited screen time growing up, had bedtime and no laptops/phones in bedrooms.

They played sports and by the time they hit high school, sports and school ate up most of their time.

All male teens in Silicon Valley/SF play tons of video games and also play club and varsity sports. They don't play video games during the week, just on weekends or during days off and it's played socially with other male friends. Video games and tech innovations are celebrated here. It's not one or the other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not the colleges. Something is very wrong with the young, mostly white, male population in this country. They just aren't motivated. I don't know what happened.

But at the top levels, men are doing just fine. There are lots of smart, healthy, motivated, kind, and well-adjusted men at Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Stanford, Duke, Michigan, Rice, Chicago, MIT, Texas, and Georgia Tech. Some might be a little on the nerdier side, but most men at these schools are doing very well and are a benefit to any community. And I think all those schools are close to 50-50, though Georgia Tech will skew a little more male.

There does seem to be a missing middle though among young men today. But more video games is definitely not the answer. Nor is dropping academic standards to get them to go to certain colleges. We need to deal with education and socialization issues at the elementary and middle school levels. The college level is too late to address these issues.

I have three brothers. One graduated from one of the schools you mentioned and is now unemployed living at home, playing video games. One dropped out of college, learned a trade and makes a ton of money but wastes his spare time on video games. And one graduated from a state school and is an expat in China living it up with many girlfriends. So none of the three are husband material.
I am trying to make my boys better than that but on DCUM if you limit gaming you're making your kid an outcast. What's the solution?

How is the 2nd one not husband material? And the 1st one would be if he got a job.

Because all three prefer to live as adolescents. They don't want to buy a house or father children. In their 30s.

[Anonymous]

I’ve never been attracted to California and hearing about the gamers adds to it. I know it’s probably not fair, but I just think adults playing video games is ick.