4 ms·

I believe the inquiry was to determine whether discrimination against female applicants was starting to happen as a way to redress the male/female imbalance.

• allengoodman 16y ago
  Exactly. Most of the top ranked liberal arts college have gender parity. For example, my school, Amherst College, has a 50% male to female ratio. Likewise, Williams is 48% to 50%, Swarthmore is 47% to 53%, and Pomona is equal. This is also true for Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Since each school is competing for the same 10% of high school students and has an acceptance rate of 10% it’s probable that males have an advantage. However, affirmative action contributes a fair amount to the overall success of these schools and their graduates. I suspect, and I hope, applicants agree. It’s also worth mentioning that this has become more of a problem because of the Seven Sisters. Harvard’s acquiring of Radcliffe and Vassar becoming coeducational placed greater pressure on similarly ranked schools. Moreover, Amherst and Williams’ becoming coeducational might’ve contributed to this imbalance.
• kylec 16y ago
  That's the issue though - for decades there was discrimination for female applicants to 'redress the male/female imbalance'. It's still being done at a lot of places. But suddenly now that the scale has tipped in the opposite direction, the same mechanism triggers an inquiry?
  • yummyfajitas 16y ago
    There still is in STEM fields. One wonders why there is no inquiry into that.
  • allengoodman 16y ago
    Really? Where?
  • houseabsolute 16y ago
    When men are in general an oppressed group, you can call me and I will be excited about questions like this.