Gender Disparity at College

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has any of your daughters complained about the high girl to boy ratio at their colleges?

Many of the colleges my daughter is looking at have way more girls than boys and this concerns her.

There is definitely no dating going on. My daughter has packs of girlfriends and is always meeting more but it's rare that she even has an opportunity to talk to a guy. The average-to-good looking guys have their pick of any girl they want.

It's kind of an issue but there's not anything to do and culturally they're all in it together. The girls just keep investing in female friendship.

I guess you have to make the best of the situation but ... are there really no straight guys in college to date??

are the straight guys who are there dating anyone?

I think the situation is that because there are so many girls, only the top of the pecking order get male attention. At most schools these are Instgram-model glam for lack of a better descriptive. I know this sounds nuts but my daughter and friends who are "regular girl pretty" are fairly invisible despite being open to dating very average guys. t'a a hard dynamic and isn't helped by how busy kids are these days.

From my daughter's experience, she and her friend group aren't particularly focused on dating. They have female and male friends, and are much more focused on academics and extracurricular activities than having a boyfriend. She has a great group of female friends and in visiting I've heard their concerns on a wide range of topics -- but not finding a boyfriend hasn't popped up at all.

Colleges all have very active hook-up cultures (and no, mom, you won’t hear all about it), but far less dating / relationships than in years past.

Just how it is now.

I went to a large university in the 90s and it was all hookup culture. I remember the few couples that's how few there were. None of my friends seriously dated anyone.

My spouse went to a small school and people there were much more paired up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has any of your daughters complained about the high girl to boy ratio at their colleges?

Many of the colleges my daughter is looking at have way more girls than boys and this concerns her.

There is definitely no dating going on. My daughter has packs of girlfriends and is always meeting more but it's rare that she even has an opportunity to talk to a guy. The average-to-good looking guys have their pick of any girl they want.

It's kind of an issue but there's not anything to do and culturally they're all in it together. The girls just keep investing in female friendship.

I guess you have to make the best of the situation but ... are there really no straight guys in college to date??

are the straight guys who are there dating anyone?

I think the situation is that because there are so many girls, only the top of the pecking order get male attention. At most schools these are Instgram-model glam for lack of a better descriptive. I know this sounds nuts but my daughter and friends who are "regular girl pretty" are fairly invisible despite being open to dating very average guys. t'a a hard dynamic and isn't helped by how busy kids are these days.

From my daughter's experience, she and her friend group aren't particularly focused on dating. They have female and male friends, and are much more focused on academics and extracurricular activities than having a boyfriend. She has a great group of female friends and in visiting I've heard their concerns on a wide range of topics -- but not finding a boyfriend hasn't popped up at all.

Colleges all have very active hook-up cultures (and no, mom, you won’t hear all about it), but far less dating / relationships than in years past.

Just how it is now.

I went to a large university in the 90s and it was all hookup culture. I remember the few couples that's how few there were. None of my friends seriously dated anyone.

My spouse went to a small school and people there were much more paired up.

People swipe all night long and hook up way more. You don’t even need to go to a bar to meet people.

Sorry mama.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has any of your daughters complained about the high girl to boy ratio at their colleges?

Many of the colleges my daughter is looking at have way more girls than boys and this concerns her.

There is definitely no dating going on. My daughter has packs of girlfriends and is always meeting more but it's rare that she even has an opportunity to talk to a guy. The average-to-good looking guys have their pick of any girl they want.

It's kind of an issue but there's not anything to do and culturally they're all in it together. The girls just keep investing in female friendship.

I guess you have to make the best of the situation but ... are there really no straight guys in college to date??

are the straight guys who are there dating anyone?

I think the situation is that because there are so many girls, only the top of the pecking order get male attention. At most schools these are Instgram-model glam for lack of a better descriptive. I know this sounds nuts but my daughter and friends who are "regular girl pretty" are fairly invisible despite being open to dating very average guys. t'a a hard dynamic and isn't helped by how busy kids are these days.

From my daughter's experience, she and her friend group aren't particularly focused on dating. They have female and male friends, and are much more focused on academics and extracurricular activities than having a boyfriend. She has a great group of female friends and in visiting I've heard their concerns on a wide range of topics -- but not finding a boyfriend hasn't popped up at all.

Colleges all have very active hook-up cultures (and no, mom, you won’t hear all about it), but far less dating / relationships than in years past.

Just how it is now.

I went to a large university in the 90s and it was all hookup culture. I remember the few couples that's how few there were. None of my friends seriously dated anyone.

My spouse went to a small school and people there were much more paired up.

Same here...I literally only knew one couple at college in the early 90s.

There really wasn't that much dating and relationships even in the 1990s...I don't know what era PP refers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It really feels like the only girls who will ever date are those who have a BF from high school. Nobody breaks up and nobody starts dating in college.

Is it easier to date in high school than college? And why?

[Anonymous]

I don't know. I think there are lots of girls who don't hook up in college. My daughter is really open about it with me (the fact that she can't find guys to hang out with or kiss or anything) and has 2 or 3 friends at other schools who have hooked with a handful of guys this year but ones at her school have not. She knows because they all complain about the guys to each other. I have no reason to believe that I'm not getting the truth. We talk about sex, birth control, consent very openly in our family. We've had kid's partners spend the night at our house, we've allowed them to vacation together, etc. I don't know the intricate ins and outs of their sex lives but we're not the type of household where anything is really held on the down low.

[Anonymous]

MRS remains a sought after degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It really feels like the only girls who will ever date are those who have a BF from high school. Nobody breaks up and nobody starts dating in college.

Is it easier to date in high school than college? And why?

I don't know why this is but it really seems to be the case. I had girl/boy twins at a large high school last year. Between their friends they probably knew 20 couples senior year. I'd say that 17/20 went to college still dating and now in spring semester 19/20 are together (literally 2 that broke up are BACK together). It's weird.

[Anonymous]

So I just asked my college freshman daughter questions. In brief:

Do you wish there were more boys at your university? Yes, that would be nice.
Is it something you or your friends think about or talk about much? No, not really.
Would you want the school to change how they did admissions so there's more of a gender balance? No way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s all real. DD at T10.
So many gay guys.
Very few dating eligible and every girl likes the same guy.

Friend who toured several SLACs in the north-East / New England at the end of last year, said:

- seemed like every 4th guy on campus was wearing a dress.

Your friend is full of sht.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s all real. DD at T10.
So many gay guys.
Very few dating eligible and every girl likes the same guy.

For every 10 straight girls, it’s 7 guys (2.5 of which are gay).

What about gay girls?

If your dd is seeking gay girls, a women's college is the place to be! The percent of gay/bi is astounding high.

True; at the all-female schools they mostly eat tacos.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So are there any colleges that are more even?

Top SLACs are better balanced than most large publics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Girls are more organized and have been executive function in the teen years than boys- which is why they do better with college admissions. But the boys still end up getting the better and higher paying jobs later on.

It will eventually catch up. Women are outnumbering men in both medical school and law school. It’s just finance and engineering that hasn’t been cracked yet.

Finance is getting cracked based on all of the internship placements than I have seen my kids SLAC. All athletes but they are winning the placement wars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s all real. DD at T10.
So many gay guys.
Very few dating eligible and every girl likes the same guy.

Friend who toured several SLACs in the north-East / New England at the end of last year, said:

- seemed like every 4th guy on campus was wearing a dress.

Fiction

[Anonymous]

Very late to this discussion, but these figures help debunk a common claim, that colleges have millions of applicants that could be successful at their college. If so, why aren't they going 50-50 male-female, which they know would be beneficial to them because it's what students themselves want? I'm guessing is that the female applicants really are better qualified than the males, so to to get to 50-50 they'd have to dip too far down into the male applicant pool. Maybe there's a better explanation, but I can't think of it.

Anonymous wrote:Sample gender breakdown by College:

UCLA: F:60%, M:39%
NYU: F:59%, M:41%
UC Davis: F:59%, M:40%
Georgetown: F:58%, M:40%
Boston U: F:58%, M:42%
UW: F:57%, M:43%
UCSB: F:57%, M:42%
Emory: F:57%, M:43%
UC Berkeley: F:55%, M:43%
Tufts: F:55%, M:45%
Amherst College: F:54%, M:44%

https://machronicle.com/colleges-face-widening-gender-imbalance/
https://www.uvm.edu/magazine/news/where-are-men
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/01/30/metro/men-college-campus-enrollment-declines/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:the problem is that elite college admissions nowadays requires one to create a resume juggling so many extracurricular at a high level in addition to maintaining a near perfect GPA with high rigor courseload. This naturally favors students who have project management and executive function skills that I bet many adults do not even have. On average, girls are
better able to juggle all
this particularly in the early high school years because they mature faster and just tend to be more organized. Obviously, there are outliers for both females and males, but I’m just talking about general trends. I bet many of those smart but somewhat scattered
boys mature and “get it” by late high school and college, but by then it is hard to catch up to those who have been building up the resume experiences and skills from an earlier age.

I will add that in today's college admission landscape playing a sport gets you nowhere (unless you are recruited). Yet it takes up a ton of time and many are basically year round now. Does not leave a lot of time for other activities, but sports IMO are important to a boys feeling of wellbeing on social connections.