"Reach" for males is not the same as "Reach" for females

Applying to College
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<p>People keep asking why a diverse student body is important, and I believe it is important to have real diversity (as opposed to having a black student and a white student who are otherwise identical) because it alerts students to viewpoints that they might not have experienced yet. I just don’t think that colleges know how to achieve true diversity because they are basing their decisions on things that may or may not result in a diverse student body.</p>

<p>However, I believe that colleges like “diversity” because it is attractive to potential students. I recently read that colleges want to keep the female-male ratio to less than 60-40 because once a college becomes comprised of more than 60% female or male for that matter, the number of applicants to that college drops dramatically. This means bad news for women who now make up 57% of the applicant pool.</p>

<p>I also find it disturbing that ever since women could vote, we have worked hard to become equal to our male counterparts. Now, as far as school is concerned, we have not only caught up but surpassed the men, and now it seems we are being punished for that. We are being told to wait for the boys to catch up to us. I hope all the older female admissions staff who lived and worked in the sexist environment of the 60’s and 70’s think about what they had to do to get to where they are in this male dominated society. I hope they realize what it means for their daughters and granddaughters.</p>

42

<p>All of this stuff about “feminized” schools is ridiculous…I’m female, yet I fit most of the descriptions provided in that article on the first page, particularly the ones concerned with wanting concrete reasons for everything, the ones about procrastinating (who in their right mind would turn something in EARLY?) etc. I’m fine with it being more competitive for girls than for guys. At some point it will probably be the opposite case. But it seems ludicrous for the guys-who are at an advantage right now- to complain about how the schools are making them “sissy.” That has nothing to do with female teachers, it has to do with lawsuits. We aren’t allowed to play football at recess because if someone gets hurt, people will sue. Trust me, there are plenty of girls who want to play those games too…at least guys have extracurricular teams that allow contact. Girls don’t even get that (compare guys lacrosse to girls). I guess all I’m trying to say is don’t make too big of an issue out of it. Guys: schools aren’t becoming feminized, they’re guarding against lawsuits. And if girls truly are better test takers, well, what do you think we’ll be doing in college.<br>
Girls: Don’t worry too much about relative acceptance rates. They’re not going to take a complete idiot guy over a smarter girl. These differences are being seen at schools who can afford to be that picky in their applicant pool, likely ones with lower admissions stats, where admissions is down to luck at some point anyway. </p>

<p>RELAX!!!</p>

43

<p>This issue has been written about in the press over the last few years. Some calling for redesigning elementary schools to going to single sex education, etc. </p>

<p>Having taught at the college level for many year, it seems to me that differences are often related to maturity. Women tend to mature faster then Men, and it matters early on. I don’t know what the current research says, but some time ago, the studies seemed to indicate it evens out in graduate school when guys decide it is time to study (that’s not to say there are not gender differences by graduate major). We still have imbalances, e.g., women in engeering and men in biology.</p>

<p>Regarding the OP, I heard but cannot verify, that a women was deferred primarily because she was a women and they wanted more men at Haverford U. Again, I do not know if this is accurate, so view it as a rumor.</p>

44

<p>“So by admitting more females we discriminate against males, but if we admit more males we discriminate against females, and keeping a balanced student bod racially, and gender-wise we discriminate against everyone.”</p>

<p>No, the racial and gender balanced admission discriminates against some people (white and Asian females the most), and in favor of others. The question–as it always is–is whether the discrimination is justified by the purpose behind it.</p>

45

<p>“I believe it is important to have real diversity (as opposed to having a black student and a white student who are otherwise identical)”</p>

<p>Yups, we have that here…a male with an Hispanic father who has all the background, education and opportunity that everyone else has had, yet he has been accepted everywhere while comparable others have not…Nothing to distinguish him but paternal ethnicity…</p>

<p>Justified? Who knows? IMO, taking a URM from a down-ridden environment who has risen above it makes more sense than from an upper middle class suburb, but who am I to judge???</p>

<p>Yet, the successful female students (white and otherwise) around here have been shafted by top schools year after year…</p>

46

<p>From our experience, it seems like alot of girls we know are getting into top tier colleges. My daughter has received numerous acceptances to schools due to her major being engineering. Right now, there is a high demand for females in engineering and I think schools are tending to accept more females in these departments. In fact, we know twin girls in our school that got accepted to Cal Tech and now MIT. In comparison, these girls are without a doubt well qualified regardless of their gender, but boys with similar achievements got denied.</p>

47

<p>yes, engineering is the exception…MIT has been good to our school here on the east coast as well…As a matter of fact, when I think about it, engineering is the ONLY field that the academically strong females have been successful with in terms of admissions…thank you for that clarification.</p>

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<p>That’s not necessarily a gender thing. I played two-hand-touch football at recess for years as a kid. If anything, the teachers were more concerned about my doing so than about the boys’ doing so. They figured the boys were hardier.</p>

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<p>But the extent to which they do so is not universal! You make it sound like colleges are a single entity that all have the same policies on this stuff. In reality, there’s probably nearly as many different policies as there are colleges.</p>

49

<p>Do the math, and you’ll see how these statistics are created. Imagine school XYZ has room for 4000 freshman. 7000 males applied and 10000 females applied. If they decide to split their freshman class 50/50, they will admit 36% of males and 25% of females. If they decide to do a 55/45 split, which many colleges seem to be doing, 25% of males and 22% of females. Even when overall, more females are admitted, it appears they are at some type of “disadvantage,” even if the admissions process is based entirely off merit. Lets say it was and many more females apply than males, as usual. Though more females may be accepted than men, are you guys saying they are discriminatory because they didn’t admit at the same RATE as they did males?</p>

50

<p>It sucks that someone who is less qualified than another applicant may get admitted over that other applicant because of race or sex. However, diversity is important and should be celebrated. No college is going to admit people who cant handle their curriculum. If they choose one applicant over a more qualified applicant…oh well. It doesn’t seem fair, but if things didn’t work this way then it is likely that student populations would become more and more homogenous and people wouldn’t be surrounded by a diverse group of individuals and therefore would have more narrow views of the world. I think the great thing about college (or at least many colleges) is that people are often surrounded by a diverse group of individuals. If a school has a large population of white females, I don’t see anything wrong with admitting the Latino male with the 1950 SAT over the white female with the 2100 SAT. The intelligence difference is likely going to be unnoticeable, so who cares.</p>

51

<p>I think equitable individual opportunity for every person is more important than colleges’ social engineering by such arbitrary factors such as race/gender.</p>

<p>If they want to attract students from many different cultures and with different beliefs, I don’t see why they have to use such an unyielding and silly standard- you can at least make the ‘diversity’ factor holistic as well!</p>

52

<p>Another article on this topic</p>

<p>[Affirmative</a> Action for Boys - TIME](<a href=“http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1727693,00.html?xid=newsletter-daily]Affirmative”>http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1727693,00.html?xid=newsletter-daily)</p>

<p>I found it interesting that there is a reference that the gap persists once the students are on campus, even as the boys supposedly mature some. </p>

<p>“But the gap persists on campus, where women tend to win more honors, join more clubs, do more volunteer work. “We sit and talk about why no men are applying for leadership roles,” says Jason Zelesky, associate dean of students at Clark University in Massachusetts, which is 60-40 female.”</p>

<p>That statement is from a small college that has a somewhat science focus and that regularly wins 3-4 Goldwater Fellowships (science, math, engineering) a year. </p>

<p>And for all the talk of the “feminization” of education, one dean touches on the idea that maybe we simply aren’t holding males accountable for their lack of accomplishment, both academic and non academic. This article would seem to indicate that males are not only not performing at the same level as females before college, but that pattern persists once they reach the college campuses.</p>

<p>“I wonder if there’s a price boys pay for the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” The college deans I talked to worry that there is some message boys are not receiving, role models they are missing, that speaks to the importance of an education both broad and deep. “I found it harder to talk to guys in interviews, even after 40 years,” says Haverford dean Greg Kannerstein, “because they seem narrower in their interests than the women.” He wonders if schools and parents have wrapped boys in cotton, focused on “support” at the expense of accountability. “For a long time, guys were left on their own, which was not so great either,” he says. “Now maybe we’re shielding them a little too much.” That would be the crowning irony, if it turns out that girls emerge stronger somehow from having the game rigged against them.”</p>

53

<p>In all my years as a student, I have noticed that girls are generally more perceptive with learning. They understand things, such as language, MUCH better than most males where I have been. Now, with something like math, I personally see many more females then males having trouble. I think that the educational system does give a bias towards females to some exstent, just because the way they learn. Males, at the heart of it, are sore losers. We can’t be told no, that wasn’t good enough, and that is probably why most males are afraid to try, especially at a young age, they don’t want to fail.</p>

<p>But, at the same token, I beleive males are much better as they grow older and make much better businessmen later in life. I am also generalizing a bit, as I know many very lazy females and extremely driven males, and many hgih positioned females, etc.</p>

<p>Also, I beleive affirmative action is completely bogus and all schools should just admit based on quality of the work done.</p>

<p>BOTTOM LINE, THE WORLD ISN’T FAIR SO GET OVER IT. IT’S JUST A SCHOOL ANYWAYS.</p>