Reply to Lessons learned so far: 2024-2025

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Lessons learned so far: 2024-2025"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Boys have an easier admission to LACs, but they DO NOT have an easier admission to business schools and engineering.  Example, the upper middle class, northern Virginia white boy with college educated parents who tries to apply to Virginia Tech for business. Better have impeccable stats.  Meanwhile, a girl in his class with much lower stats got accepted for a Classics major.

Kid is fine and doing well at an oos school w a great business program, but don’t tell me that all boys have it easier. [/quote]

Business/ CS / Engineering are male-dominated majors.

Makes sense.[/quote]

Anybody know if the gender divide applies to other majors? Like I would imagine if a female just HAS to go to a certain college, applying as a philosophy major would be a good strategy. And guys in same situation might want to apply as French majors. [/quote]

Yes and no. Philosophy and history are not necessarily undersubscribed — and almost never as undersubscribed as any other humanities major. In that sense, being a female philosophy major (although philosophy is a “guy” major) probably gives less of an edge than being a female French major (which is almost exclusively female); with often 2-3 French majors a year, at best, many of these departments are in serious trouble.

To be sure, a genuine male French major would be a unicorn. But I would assume AOs are suspicious of the male actually majoring in French once admitted. To say the least, the male would likely have to do more than take AP French and be co-President of the French club to make that narrative convincing (and other issues to: did the kid take lots of science, computer science, econ and other electives vs, say, a second foreign language, AP music, art etc.?).

A female may not have quite as high a bar of suspicion to overcome. Not only because all modern languages are female-dominated (classics is more balanced), but French is traditionally the most female-dominated— that whole wistful Paris thing.

[/quote]

One way to convince AOs your son is a legit prospective major is for the kid to arrange a visit with a French professor during a campus visit and to demonstrate a. an interest in studying French and b. the actual ability to speak French fluently enough to take literature classes. French prof will be in touch with admissions if this is a selective private. If your son can do that, they will be in good shape. If your son cannot do that, they aren't going to study French seriously and should be looked at skeptically by AOs. 
[/quote]

Agree a letter from prof can help. But there are MANY other ways:
- summer French program at T20
- create a capstone project (https://www.crimsoneducation.org/us/blog/friends-in-french-a-crimson-student-initiative/)

also a good co-major for these kids of languages is: humanistic studies (princeton) or similar[/quote]

Or show how kid used French to make an impact (used French to assist Haitian refugees) or writing in the American Journal of French Studies (or better yet, an internship there) or work/internship with The French History podcast. So many easily googleable ideas.

https://american-journal-of-french-studies.com/louisiana-should-accept-the-haitian-refugees

https://www.thefrenchhistorypodcast.com/the-french-in-modern-haiti-with-david-ritter/[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics