Anonymous wrote:Is there an actual admissions advantage for a male applicant to express interest in, say, comparative literature or a female applicant to profess a love of physics? Just wondering if LAC’s care enough to bump an applicant for areas of study where there aren’t as many boys/girls. While on the one hand it makes sense I could also see this being gamed by kids with no real intent to study in the professed area.

No - just "professing interest" won't help. But DEMONSTRATING interest through actual accomplishments in the STEM field will help a lot.

I agree that the amount of the advantage is not large at really selective schools.

Then there are schools like Colorado School of Mines/WPI/RPI where it matters.

There are certain schools (not necessarily CSM/WPI/RPI) where women expressing an interest in STEM not only get a leg up but also get $10k or even $20k more in merit aid than men.

These schools tend to have historically been predominantly male and/or have very few majors that are not STEM related.

I imagine, although our family doesn't have any direct admissions/merit experience, that there are also schools, that maybe were once all-women, where men have a leg up in admission and/or merit aid.

I don't think these types of advantages are really something students go looking for very often.

Anonymous wrote:Is there an actual admissions advantage for a male applicant to express interest in, say, comparative literature or a female applicant to profess a love of physics? Just wondering if LAC’s care enough to bump an applicant for areas of study where there aren’t as many boys/girls. While on the one hand it makes sense I could also see this being gamed by kids with no real intent to study in the professed area.

Harder to game than you think.

Yes, some schools have an "one door" policy that makes it easy to switch majors (Case Western).

However, the application can make it clear that the student does not have the aptitude for a particular major by looking at their course load and ecs (a STEM student with no STEM credentials)

"Among the U.S. News top 30 liberal arts colleges — excluding all-women colleges — there were just two with gaps of 3 or more points favoring women. They were Harvey Mudd (23 percent female admission rate, 10 percent male rate, a 13-point gap) and Colby (30 percent female rate, 26 percent male rate, a 4-point gap).

Here are the liberal arts gaps among this group of schools that favored men:

Vassar: 19 percent admission rate for women, 34 percent for men, a 15-point gap.
Davidson: 19 percent for women, 26 percent for men, a 7-point gap.
Bates: 23 percent for women, 28 percent for men, a 5-point gap.
Pomona: 10 percent for women, 15 percent for men, a 5-point gap.
Swarthmore: 15 percent for women, 20 percent for men, a 5-point gap.
Bowdoin: 13 percent for women, 17 percent for men, a 4-point gap.
Carleton: 21 percent for women, 25 percent for men, a 4-point gap.
Haverford: 23 percent for women, 26 percent for men, a 3-point gap.
Kenyon: 24 percent for women, 27 percent for men, a 3-point gap.
Middlebury: 16 percent for women, 19 percent for men, a 3-point gap.
Wesleyan: 23 percent for women, 26 percent for men, a 3-point gap.
Williams: 18 percent for women, 21 percent for men, a 3-point gap."

Colleges need to fill every department and balance students’ interests, knowing there is no guarantee that a student will stick with a particular field or major.

The place where it is an advantage is if Sunny Acres College just built a new, fancy center for basket weaving endowed by someone wealthy. They will absolutely look for incoming students to fill it.

If a college has a strength or reputation in a particular field that aligns with a prospective students interest, they should absolutely try to convey their desire to study with Prof Jones and the rest of the team in the target area. It is a good thing to talk about in an interview if student can do so with depth and authenticity.

From 2016: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/03/13/want-an-edge-in-college-admissions-see-the-schools-where-women-and-men-have-an-advantage/?utm_term=.24358eff344e

"Of the top 30 U.S. News national universities, 10 had gender differences of 3 or more percentage points in admission rates. Here are the gaps that favored men:

Wake Forest: 32 percent admission rate for women, 38 percent for men, a 6-point gap.
Tufts: 15 percent for women, 20 percent for men, a 5-point gap.
Brown: 7 percent for women, 11 percent for men, a 4-point gap.
Vanderbilt: 11 percent for women, 15 percent for men, a 4-point gap.
Here are the gaps that favored women:

Caltech: 16 percent admission rate for women, 6 percent for men, a 10-point gap.
MIT: 13 percent for women, 6 percent for men, a 7-point gap.
Carnegie Mellon: 28 percent for women, 22 percent for men, a 6-point gap.
U. of Michigan: 35 percent for women, 30 percent for men, a 5-point gap.
Cornell: 16 percent for women, 12 percent for men, a 4-point gap.
U. of Virginia: 30 percent for women, 27 percent for men, a 3-point gap."

*imbalance*

There's an advantage if there is a gender balance at the school. This is easily found on google - but there are technical schools where they are working hard on the ratio and will give merit money to women (WPI for example).

Many LACs give some preference to boys because of the imbalance there as well.

There is an advantage to being male and applying to a small liberal arts college because they get more females applying than males and they want a balanced class.
There is an advantage to being female and applying to a STEM school (small or large) because they get more males applying than females and they want a balanced class.

The schools that have the most trouble getting that balance will give $$ to the gender they are seeking.

Interesting question. This board often presumes a female expressing interest in STEM has a leg up but I understand that, if that was once the case, it is now old hat and offers virtually nothing. Of course, being female at a school that skews heavily male is itself an advantage. And, conversely, I think males generally have an easier time of it, at least at liberal arts colleges, given current demographics.

My guess is naming a specific major perceived to be rare does not add much. But an essay about how much DS wants comp lit or DD wants physics may be a different story.

Is there an actual admissions advantage for a male applicant to express interest in, say, comparative literature or a female applicant to profess a love of physics? Just wondering if LAC’s care enough to bump an applicant for areas of study where there aren’t as many boys/girls. While on the one hand it makes sense I could also see this being gamed by kids with no real intent to study in the professed area.