<p>"WASHINGTON - A study to be released today looking at long-term trends in test scores and academic success argues that widespread reports of U.S. boys being in crisis are greatly overstated and that young males in school are in many ways doing better than ever.</p>
<p>…the Washington-based think tank Education Sector found that, over the past three decades, boys’ test scores are mostly up, more boys are going to college and more are getting bachelor’s degrees.</p>
<p>Although low-income boys, like low-income girls, are lagging behind middle-class students, boys are scoring significant gains in elementary and middle school and are much better prepared for college, the report says. It concludes that much of the pessimism about young males seems to derive from inadequate research…<a href=“http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13546172/[/url]”>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13546172/</a></p>
<p>I’ve heard people complain that it is more difficult for boys to gain entrance to some colleges and universities. This is based on data that indicates far higher admittance rates for girls than boys (60/40), while the applications ratio is still about 50/50. This is the case at our state university, where enrollment is about 52/48 (girls/boys). Parents suspect their boys are held to higher standards. Whether it’s true or not, I don’t know.</p>
<p>I thought I read that it was the opposite…harder for boys to get in than for girls. Wasn’t there an article in the NYT about girls and Kenyon College?</p>
<p>Yeah, that’s what I meant. The admittance rate for girls is higher than boys; that is, more girls who apply get in than boys. When you look at the numbers, it seems that a lower percentage of boys get accepted, hence being a boy makes it more selective. What I don’t know is whether the boys that apply are just not as qualified as the girls. I do know that SATs for boys tend to be higher, not lower, than girls. Obviously we don’t have the whole picture- grades, essays, other.</p>
<p>I do know that boys and girls differ in quantitive/qualitative testing.</p>
<p>If you read the MSNBC blurb, it is somewhat contradictory - boys may be doing better than before, but they still trail girls significantly, except high school boys in math. Boys lead in math, but the margin is much lower than between girls and boys in reading/English.</p>
<p>Would be interesting to see a breakdown by SES and race. Also some comparison of dropout rates.</p>
<p>Allmusic,
The author doesn’t provide data to explain the discrepancy. Actually, she seems to suggest that more girls apply than boys, and in an effort to keep genders equal, the school accepts the same number of each; therefore, more girls get rejected. That at least makes sense to me. What WOULDN’T make sense:</p>
<p>100 girls apply, 50 boys apply
25 girls accepted (avg SAT 2000), 25 boys accepted (avg SAT 1500)</p>
<p>or:</p>
<p>100 girls apply, 100 boys apply
25 girls accepted, 50 boys accepted (same avg SAT)</p>
<p>If her point was that it was “harder” to get in if you’re a girl (i.e. you have to make higher grades, scores, etc), then she used a crummy example (a girl who had marginal grades and scores).</p>
<p>It would be interesting to see if the same thing happens in reverse at engineering schools.</p>
<p>I think the author was being somewhat disingenuous if she is suggesting that because more women get turned away at Kenyon, somehow the bar is higher for them than men. I’d like to see more objectivity, like average SATs or GPAs by gender.</p>
<p>Admissions rate doesn’t tell the whole story, or much of the story at all. The fact is that many of the applicant pools are self-selecting. SATs and GPA tell some of the story; if you can further quantify by adding extracurricular involvement, you’ve got it made.</p>
<p>My alma mater does give a preference for males in liberal arts; no preference for women in engineering. In fact, I read a study which showed that women who apply to engineering programmes are, on the whole, more talented than their male counterparts. Only the really good ones even apply, so they are admitted in higher rates but have higher stats. They also do better.</p>
<p>SATs are known to overpredict male performance and underpredict female performance. Unless we are going to reward good SAT scores, for their own sake, we should acknoweldge that they are predictive in nature. Those predictions vary depending on numerous factors, gender being only one. (Note that SAT may be more important in something like engineering, where you need that mindset and the skills to even pass, and less important if you are admitting someone into sociology, where you want to know if they are good at writing.)</p>
<p>Well, considering that we have twice the national average of women engineers there, why boycott? </p>
<p>Generally, I think the issue is that high school girls tend to be better prepared for college - better essays, more extracurriculars, perhaps better recommendations. A lot of it is that many boys spend the first few years of high school goofing off, then wake up around junior year and realise that they need to be serious. So they have good junior year GPAs, but their overall GPA is lower. </p>
<p>I do think that it would be tremendously beneficial to both men and women to have college start at age 20. By that time, more women are confident in their mathematical abilities (I know a lot of my girlfriends in college who started off ignoring math and science, then realise that they like it and should give it a try) and men have matured a bit more. Preferences, either way, seem like such a poor method to accomplish anything.</p>
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