<p>I think Dartmouth is an example of a school whose culture was so “male” with the fraternities and drinking and history that the inevitable wave of female demographics just crashed on the beach a few years later than elsewhere. Most of the Ivy League was late, but that only makes sense given that females weren’t even allowed to apply until very recently in the history of all those schools. There was less resistance to the inevitable demographic shift at schools that have been enrolling women for a century or more.</p>
<p>Plus, the whole tradition of elite eduction was single sex in New England. In most of the rest of the country (midwest, south, west), the higher education traditions were largely co-ed from day one as their traditions sprung up in the late 1800s during the first wave of coeducation.</p>