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Gender inequalities in college admissions |
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Written by Cara Connors
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Wednesday, 10 March 2010 |
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As a senior in high school I spend a lot of time wondering, worrying, and thinking about what college will be like next year. Will my roommate like heavy metal music and snore when she sleeps? Or wear patchouli oil instead of bathing? Will I end up on the East Coast or West Coast? Will I gain the dreaded freshmen 15 pounds? I recently read an article in the New York Times that posed a problem I had not yet considered. The article, entitled “The New Math on Campus,” profiled several female college students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Chapel Hill currently enrolls about 60 percent women and 40 percent men, creating a gender imbalance on its campus. The women profiled discussed how dating and other social interactions on campus were largely dictated by men—and how it was nearly impossible to find a date.
This information was unsettling, for in all my neurotic worrying I had not considered the stress of an oddly imbalanced student population. Clearly I’m not going to college to graduate with a ring on my finger, or to spend my nights at frats hitting on boys, but I have always envisioned my college experience as being largely co-ed. I think of my years in college in terms of both social and academic opportunities—in my mind’s eye the social ones involve interactions with members of the male sex.
Yet as I wait for college acceptance, I realize that this issue of gender inequality on college campuses has created another conundrum for US universities, beyond female students having dates for the winter formal. Over 56 percent of college students in the United States are females, and women are earning 60 percent of the bachelors degrees awarded. This is a victory for women, who for years were not afforded opportunities to attend college. However, this triumph comes at a price. As colleges accept more women it creates skewed gender populations on campuses—such as at Chapel Hill.
It also creates a significant disadvantage for qualified female applicants, as schools treat male applicants more favorably in an effort to balance their student populations. The US Commission of Civil Rights is currently investigating nineteen undisclosed American colleges for allegedly implementing affirmative action-like programs to boost male admission. Vassar College accepted 20 percent of the women who applied last year (nearly two thirds of the applicant pool were women) while it accepted 35 percent of men who applied. Pomona College accepted 13 percent of its female applicants but nearly 21 percent of its male applicants. A 2007 analysis by the US World News and Report found that admissions rates for women were on average 13 percentage points lower than for men’s.
Data and statistics may not tell the full story; it is possible these men were more qualified candidates. But it’s also possible being a male is an inherent advantage when applying to college. Henry Broaddus, the Dean of Admissions at William and Mary College, believes that gender balance is important, stating: “I stand by the assertion that institutions that market themselves as co-ed, and believe that the pedagogical experiences they provide rely in part on a co-ed student body, have a legitimate interest in enrolling a class that is not disproportionately male or female.” Colleges want to continue to appeal to female applicants and this often means having a more equal ratio between the sexes.
This creates a personal moral dilemma. I certainly don’t want to receive the dreaded thin envelope from a university, while a less-qualified boy is accepted. At the same time, I want a co-ed college experience, filled with interactions with both sexes. There seems to be an answer to the question of gender inequality in college admissions: we need more qualified boys. But that in and of itself isn’t really the solution. The solution is how to mold more academically driven male students. Boys in high school need to end a culture of poor study habits, where being smart and receiving good grades is uncool. In my high school experience I have generally found that girls are more supportive of each other’s academic endeavors and it’s possible this plays a role in our success. Girls also tend to be more organized than boys (myself not included) and this influences their ability to stay on top of assignments. We need more academically driven and organized boys so that girls’ success is not at the expense of the other sex.
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