frazzled1

Oh, my. It certainly seems quite a bit different to me. (I don't quite see the comparison, anyway. Women aren't a minority - which seems to be your point.) And, whether it carries any weight with you or not, I'd like to point out that I said my daughters would not have chosen W & M had it been 80 percent female or 80 percent male. They're apparently the kind of student the school has in mind in striving to compose a diverse student body.

I can see that I'm not making my point with you (and you're not making yours with me either, but it's your thread). Had I realized that your initial post wasn't really a question, I wouldn't have responded. But before signing out, can I suggest that the word "shun" was kind of ... overkill? This, too:

viscious

Is there any data that supports the claim that the boys admitted to W&M are less qualified than the girls? I certainly have no seen it on campus.

soccerguy315

lol

those stupid boys, dragging down W&M's reputation. I'm still waiting for the stats that prove your accusations.

novaparent

Frazzled, my point isn't that women are minorities, it's that women are being discriminated against because of a physical attribute - their gender - which isn't right whether they are minorities or not. And, Soccerguy, I can't provide the stats because, unlike Kenyon, William and Mary hasn't released them. Wonder why that is?

drama-songbird

Well, here's an argument that has a lot to do with me. Being a girl from Fairfax County, I'd like to put in my two cents.

Yeah, it's harder for girls to get in. And, yeah, a higher percentage of boys than girls are accepted. Bear in mind, though, that it is a liberal arts school, and (traditionally) more girls apply to LACs than boys (Think Swarthmore. Check out THOSE stats). Do I think it's "discrimination"? Nope. Because I know that if I applied to an engineering school, I'd have an easier time getting in than if I were male. It's just how things work. (Now I'm wondering if there's a thread with a parent complaining about, say, MIT being biased against boys. I've heard that MIT's admission rate for boys is 13% and for girls is 30%)

Is it fair? Maybe not.

I mean, coming from this region, I get what you're saying, novaparent. But William and Mary is a state school. They do have certain quotas for admission by region - why not by gender as well? I don't think it's that girls are being held to higher standards, but rather that everyone is held to the same standards, and there are more girls who meet those standards simply because there are more girl applicants.

Anyway, since you probably have a daughter applying to W&M, I wish her the best of luck.

standrews

This is why the question "Does W&M discriminate against girls?" has proved a tempest in a tea pot. If you are making this claim, which you seem to be, then you need data to support it. It's a big leap to prove that a difference in admission rates constitutes discrimination. It's a bigger leap to suggest that lack of data from W&M constitutes a cover up or conspiracy, which is exactly what your "wonder why that is?" question implies.

Is it harder for women to gain admission? Very probably so. Let's leave it at that.

novaparent

Here's the thing, folks, everyone keeps talking about the need for data but I'm the ONLY one who is in fact offering ANY: the data that is freely available on the common data set, which shows that year after year after year William and Mary admits a much higher percentage of boys than girls and is the ONLY selective state school in its region -- check out UNC, U-Va, JMU, St. Mary's of Maryland, and Mary Washington -- that does this.

Drama-songbird hasn't offered any DATA to support her view that there are regional quotas -- which, for the record, William and Mary denies -- nor do you, standrews, offer any data to support your view.

And, not that it should matter, but I don't have a daughter (or a son, for that matter) applying to William and Mary this year. I've had kids apply in past years, including one (a daughter) who got in but went elsewhere. William and Mary was not a top choice for any of my kids, but it has been for some of their female friends, and it was disappointing to see their applications denied while less qualified boys in their classes were offered admission. As a state resident I have an interest in admissions to our state colleges being fair, which in my view means, among other things, being gender-blind.

These are the facts, supported by DATA:

1. William and Mary has nearly twice as many female applicants as male.
2. William and Mary shares many cross applicants with U-Va, UNC, St. Mary's, Mary Washington, and JMU.
3. Each of these other schools also has many more female applicants than males.
4. Every one of these schools practices "holistic admission," meaning that each takes into account attributes other than grades, courses, and test scores.
5. Each of these other schools admits females at numbers that are proportionate to the number of female applications.
6. In contrast, year after year after year, William and Mary's admission rate for boys is in the 40s, while for girls it's in the 20s.
7. The most logical reading of this data is that, other than William and Mary, none of these schools considers gender to be a major factor in their holistic admissions policies.

So, standrews, here's the question. If you agree with drama-songbird that William and Mary has regional quotas even though William and Mary denies it, then why are you so quick to take take the school at its word that it's not holding women to a higher standard when there's actual -- and strong -- data to support it?

U-Va is on record that it does not take gender into account in its admissions decisions. Dean J has made this clear on the U-Va board, and U-Va's data supports this. Why hasn't the William and Mary admissions rep on this board piped in on the issue?

wmpllz

Correct me if I am wrong, but this entire thread makes absolutely no sense if none of your kids are even applying to WM this year.

This is just some ridiculous argument that is never going to be resolved.

I really don't understand what the point of starting this even was.

This is college admissions, not a conspiracy - and anyone who think it is can just not apply to WM. Problem solved.

novaparent

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know that you are only allowed to have an opinion on college admissions, discrimination, and the fairness of your state institutions if you have a child applying to a particular college in a certain year.

The point of this thread is that I have a concern that William and Mary treats girls unfairly based on the available data. It's a free country and an open forum and I have the right to express my opinion as long as I abide by CC's rules. If you don't like what I'm saying or don't think I have a right to express my opinion, then ignore me and go to another thread.

Anyway, here's a link to an interesting article on the very issue that I've been discussing that specifically mentions William and Mary and sheds light on why we haven't seen a lot of lawsuits about this, either at William and Mary or elsewhere. I guess we should just tell the author to bug off unless his kid's applying to college this year?

http://www.whyboysfail.com/wordpress...clearticle.doc

coase

You are wrong. Whether the thread "makes sense" is independent of whether one has a child applying. (As it happens, I do have a child applying, but this issue is moot for her.) Even if you feel that participating in the thread only makes sense for such people, you are again wrong. For starters, all VA taxpayers have a stake in W&M.

It is hardly ridiculous to debate the merits of preferences (IS vs. OOS, legacy, URM, athletes, etc.). If there is one thing that higher education should do, it is to foster thoughtful debate. As for the basic question of whether W&M has higher standards for girls, that cannot be answered with existing public data, and would probably not be resolved even if W&M published GPA and SAT data by sex. So, I actually agree with that part.

I am 100% certain that this is a true statement.

Walking away from something that one perceives as a problem does not solve it. I sincerely doubt that this is an ethos that W&M wants to espouse.

I also want to comment on the analogy to MIT's acceptance rate of girls. If someone has data on the relative qualifications of girls and boys who are admitted that would be useful. But there may be one big difference between the two situations. (It is not a legal or moral difference.) A female engineer once mentioned to me that when she was an undergrad in mechanical engineering at a top school, most of the girls in the program were at the top of the class. Her explanation was simple: it was not worth going through the program if you weren't really good. In other words, there was an elelment of self-selection. Simply looking at acceptance rates at that point would have been misleading because the applicant pools were qualitatively different.

Rixs

@wmpllz- I am a girl who has applied to W&M this year, and I am very interested in this debate, regardless of whether I am actively participating in it.

W&M is the only school that both meets my academic and financial standing, and I would be very upset if the reason I didn't get in was because I am female.

So for the parents here to discuss this topic, whether or not they have kids applying, is of interest to me.

So shove it. If you didn't want to talk about this topic, then you didn't have to click on the thread.

novaparent

Here's another very interesting article on why what William and Mary appears to be doing is so bad for women:

How Colleges Short-Change Women The Quick and the Ed

drama-songbird

@novaparent: At the William and Mary information session, the representative actually told us about the regional quotas: about 1/3 from NoVA, about 1/3 from the rest of Virginia, and about 1/3 from out-of-state. I highly doubt she was lying. As for the rest of your post, I have already stated my views, and I do not care to repeat myself.

@coase: I've had several friends (both genders) apply to top engineering schools. All I'm saying is that it was easier for girls to get into those schools than boys with virtually the same scores/grades/qualifications.

novaparent

Drama-songbird, with due respect, "quota" is a pretty loaded word that a college admissions representative isn't likely to use. I don't think she lied; I think you misunderstood her.

drama-songbird

You're right. She probably didn't use the exact word "quota". But let's not argue semantics here. She DID say that generally, each incoming class is composed of about 1/3 NoVA, 1/3 Virginia, and 1/3 out-of-state. She made it sound as if the classes were *intentionally* chosen to be that way. If that's what the classes really end up being composed of, it doesn't matter whether the 1/3s-thing is OFFICIAL policy or just an unwritten rule-of-thumb. The end result is the same.

Anyway, it would have been pretty hard to misunderstand something like that. Just saying.