<p>So, moving back to the original topic of the thread; if the alumnus interviewer were female, would there be less anxiety over sending a daughter over to a house, even if it was in an out of the way location? What if the roles were reversed; a female interviewer and a male student, or a male interviewer or a male student?</p>
<p>Jahaba posted: "What if the roles were reversed; a female interviewer and a male student, or a male interviewer or a male student?”</p>
<p>Response: The same problems and concerns exposed in post #924 will apply</p>
<p>I think the worrier type parent will worry regardless. The propriety type parent may be less anxious.</p>
<p>However, the same positive aspects of home interviews in post #957 will apply.</p>
<p>The role reversal, and even the sexual orientation of the interviewer were discussed a gazillion pages ago. Lets see, what else can we worry about?</p>
<p>Pizzagirl and marite – The post of mine that you are criticizing does not say that you never change existing practices at the Holy Trinity (or elsewhere). It talks about “burden of proof”. And for me, of course, it matters whether you are talking about something fundamental, like whether there is an obligation to educate women or minorities or disfavored social groups, or something much more trivial, like where you hold interviews.</p>
<p>The only reason I care about the latter at all is because the two DO connect. The first time in his life that my father actually had a conversation with a WASP was his Yale interview. Sure, he suffered discrimination – although less than his father did – but that very process of being invited into the home of The Man and having an actual conversation was extraordinarily important to him, in terms of getting him to raise his sights and broaden his horizons, and also perhaps to The Man himself, who was learning to deal with disfavored groups as people, as individuals, rather than as stereotypes.</p>
<p>Jahaba - along those lines got me to thinking…
A Catholic Priest in our Diocese is a Princeton grad. I am just wondering how many parents would be okay if he interviewed applicants for his alum in the rectory - alone. Come to think of it - he probably would not be allowed to do so.</p>
<p>Oberlin managed to be co-ed from its inception in the 1830’s.
Lawrence University managed to be co-ed from its inception in the 1840’s.
I know Northwestern was co-educational by the 1880’s at the latest. </p>
<p>So it’s hardly evidence of “forward thinking” that in the 1890’s and early 1900’s, all-male institutions decided to form / found female affiliates, and waited 60-70 years or so to make the big step into actually going co-ed."</p>
<p>I agree that places like Lawrence and Oberlin were ahead of Ivies when it came to educating women.</p>
<p>However, considering that in the 1800s the country didn’t even think that women were worthy of the vote or of property rights, the fact that any universities – including the Ivies – offered higher education to women during the 1800s was an example of forward thinking. Most people during that time didn’t think that women were worthy of or capable of higher education at all and most people during that time didn’t consider women worthy of rights that we consider very basic.</p>
<p>It is interesting that there were educational opportunites for women pre-1800 and more beginning in the 1830s.</p>
<p>[Timeline</a> of women’s colleges in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women’s_colleges_in_the_United_States]Timeline">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women’s_colleges_in_the_United_States)</p>
<p>My understanding was that the raw number of colleges (of all admissions policies) was much smaller because there were much fewer citizens, college level education was not necessary for very many endeavors (and clearly not necessary to be able to support oneself) and “financial aid” didn’t exist as we know it.</p>
<p>I think Hollins (under a predecessor name) originally was co-ed in the 1840s but switched to all female in the 1850s. Was there an actual un-met demand for co-educational colleges in the 1800s?</p>
<p>The fact that an institution enrolled men and women on the same campus in the 19th century doesn’t mean they were egalitarian by modern standards.</p>
<p>There were always different parietal rules for men’s and women’s dorms, different punishments from the college for breaking the gendered rules of decorum, women were officially or de facto excluded from some courses and areas of study, etc. </p>
<p>Even Oberlin, which was a pioneer by any standard, had the female students cook and do laundry for the male students, and barred them from public speaking. There are lots of ways that “coed” universities denigrated women besides putting a different name on the diploma.</p>
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<p>Sorry, you’re right. I should have read or at least searched through the thread before asking; you have to admit, almost 70 pages of solid text is a bit daunting!</p>
<p>Totally understand, Jahaba! Amazing that this thread has gotten so much traction.</p>
<p>
Change your settings to show more posts on a page 
I only show 26 pages here and can scan them pretty easily.</p>
<p>^^ yup, 26 pgs is easier to read (suggested this several pgs ago!) 40 posts per pg-- highly recommend this setting!</p>
<p>According to a Google Book search:
- Here’s a list of many state u’s and when they went co-ed. Many of them were either co-ed from the beginning, or within a few years of founding.</p>
<p>Iowa 1856
Wisconsin 1865
Indiana 1868
Minnesota, Kansas 1869
Illinois, Michigan, Missouri 1870
Ohio 1873
Colorado 1877
California 1879
Mississippi 1882
Texas 1883
Alabama 1893</p>
<p>2) Here’s a list of what % of higher-ed institutions were co-ed at given points in time:
1870: 31%
1880: 51%
1890: 66%
1902: 72%</p>
<p>So Radcliffe was founded when 50% of higher-ed institutions were already co-ed,
and Pembroke and Barnard were founded around when 66% of higher-ed institutions were already co-ed. And, of course, these were founded as women’s affiliates and didn’t actually become truly co-ed til 60-70 years later.</p>
<p>Come again with how that was so leading edge?</p>
<p>JHS:</p>
<p>Thanks for your response. I am more focused on the definition of “cultural” than on the longevity of a particular practice. I do know that in certain cultures a one-to-one meeting of individuals of the opposite sex would not be considered appropriate (to put it mildly). In the context of college applications in the US, it is far more a personal issue rather than a cultural one. Which is why some posters keep on saying “just my opinion,” or “this is how I feel” and feel dissed if one disagrees with them and tries to advance “rational” statistically based arguments.
I agree, too, that it is not worth changing a practice that has worked pretty well to accommodate so very few; it is not at all like abolishing race and gender criteria for admissions.</p>
<p>I think t is pretty clear that this is a personal issue, and not a rational one. And I think that is why many us (or at least speaking for myself), who are cautious and are parents who have been protective or worry a whole bunch, are astounded that anyone would be concerned about alum interviews…because even for us worryworts, it just is unfathomable how this would be a risky venture. And so we can only leave it to that there is a minority of folks who are so uncomfortable about this situation for personal reasons that others may not be able to relate to and are not based on rational or logical reasons. As has been said many times, these folks can either decline the interview option, request a change of venue, or actually take the plunge to do something that involves some discomfort for them, since often such long established and successful procedures will not be changed to accommodate the minority. </p>
<p>I still wonder, however, if the folks who feel that alum interviews in private residences are risky or uncomfortable, how they handle the many situations that truly have some risk to them or where their student will be faced one to one with someone they do not know in a private setting in college and beyond. With the alum interview, the parent can even wait in a car by the curb. In college, the student will be faced with far riskier situations where a parent won’t know where they are at all times or be nearby.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, it seems to me that Midwestern schools were, in general, far ahead of those in the Northeast in terms of co-education (rather than the “separate but not quite equal” policies of several Ivy League schools like Harvard, Brown, and Columbia – better than Yale or Princeton to be sure, but that shouldn’t be the standard for comparison.) </p>
<p>After all, the University of Chicago was very consciously established with the idea in mind of being a Harvard-Yale-Princeton-type university in the Midwest. (The actual term “Ivy League” dates back only to the 1930’s, used as a sports term even before the league’s formal beginning in the 1950’s.) Anyway, Chicago’s two most famous early Presidents, William Rainey Harper and Robert Maynard Hutchins, were both Yale men; most of its professors early on were from H, Y, or P; the Gothic architecture was supposed to be reminiscent of the Northeastern schools (as well as Oxford and Cambridge), and so on. But it somehow managed to be co-educational from its founding in 1891. And I don’t think that was even considered to be a particularly big deal at the time.</p>
<p>Marite-
Well said. If posters said “this is how I feel but its just my opinion”, or “meetings between a male and female alone would go against our cultural belief system” they might get a different response than if their messsage implies “this is how I feel so the whole policy should be abolished because I say so, and if you disagree I am going to insult you”. </p>
<p>Also, as an aside, should overly worried parents be concerned when their kids are away from home, they can activate their cellphone company’s GPS tracker service. We had it turned on temporarily when DS lost his phone, in order to locate it (it does it within about a 300 yd radius, which let us know it was still on campus and not in a pawn shop). He found it and then immediately insisted we turn off the tracking!! That was fine with us, as we had no intention of paying for the service.</p>
<p>“The Ivies really were incredibly late-to-the-party on the concept of enrolling / educating women, weren’t they? So much for forward thinking.”
How abour Cornell? founded 1868, co-ed 1870.</p>
<p>Cornell was the notable exception. Perhaps because it was the only one that didn’t trace its history and founding back to the Colonial era.</p>