Girls, Your New Glass Ceiling: College Admissions

September 22nd, 2007

What SAT Scores Reveal and the Demise of Marriageable Males

Girls, young women, there are too many of you on America’s college campuses. That is in comparison with your male counterparts. The college world has been waiting patiently for the scales to rebalance themselves, but male enrollment remains lackluster, so intervenes humankind.

Male Affirmative Action

Our report, The White Man’s Guide to Getting a Minority Scholarship, examines the possibilities for a white male qualifying for minority scholarships. It is a controversial topic, at best, and not one we take lightly.

But, what exactly has happened to the populations of males, many white, on college campuses, that continues to inspire the marginally offensive concept?

SAT Scores: Education’s Favorite Metric

Back in the mid-90s legal action against College Board and Educational Testing Service served to correct what educational experts had alleged for years “that the PSAT, the test that makes high school students eligible for National Merit Scholarships” was designed to appeal more to males than to females. The corrected test was designed with a writing component, which seemed to offer an equitable correction.

It’s been understood for decades that females perform better in the classroom than males, but on tests the opposite was true. In 1995, based on university research, the following SAT truths were proven:

“The SAT falls far short of its sole advertised claim — the accurate prediction of first year college grades — by consistently underestimating the academic performance of females.”

So college admissions systems based on test scores of course tended to favor males.

Why the Shortage of Males on Campus, though?

Current research suggests that because girls “from all backgrounds” adapt more readily to classroom environments many are quite prepared for college when it rolls around. Secondary school systems lag alarmingly behind in proper college preparation. But if females can keep up, it may just be a symptom of Education’s bigger ill that a larger percentage of males than in the past are not making it to college, a problem that is complicated even more because it apparently cuts across all other demographics.

Does the SAT continue to influence college demographics? Here’s a basic comparison test. Consider:

  • Males tend to score higher on the math portion of the SAT.
  • Females tend to score higher on the reading portion of the SAT.
  • Given an average math SAT score and an average reading SAT score from a college campus, how closely do the scores reflect the gender demographics of the campus?

Armed with statistics on average math and reading SAT scores from almost any college campus in the U.S., I chose a few colleges with scores significantly higher in both categories and a few with scores relatively even. My questions: in cases where math scores far outpace reading scores will I find a larger population of males on campus, and when the scores in reading are significantly higher will I find more females? At the same time, when SAT averages for both categories are somewhat even will the gender demographics be also fairly split?

A couple of obvious choices:

  • Sweet Briar College (women’s college); math: 548, reading: 586
  • Hampden-Sydney College (men’s college); math: 573, reading: 571

Drive for Balanced Campuses: Better Social Life and the Fear of a Diminishing Educated (Nubile) Male Population

For the most part the above SAT scores are indicative of the demographics, but a more telling statistic may be the comparison between the numbers of male and female applicants at any one institution versus those actually chosen for admission. This is likely where major turns of the screw occur. While the debate seems focused on ‘gender parity’, a much murkier, and at times sophomoric, rationale is at work: for example, the unspoken fear that the decreasing population of male students will translate into a less educated, less marriageable male population for their well-educated female counterparts.

  • At MIT females face a much easier time of admission over 7,000 males apply annually, compared with over 2,000 females, but the ratio of those actually admitted is 758 males : 736 females.
  • At Lafayette College, the formerly male student body has emphasized female enrollment and now is close to gender parity. Nearly 800 more male applicants than female are considered annually, but enrollment is almost balanced.
  • The College of William and Mary is one that has made headlines in the last few years for its high rejection rate for women. Men have a much easier time with admissions: over 2,000 more applications from females are received annually, in comparison to males, but the ratio of students admitted is 1,596 male : 1,696 female.

The William and Mary syndrome has become the way of admissions at many smaller, private schools.

Why is it that we always want to fix things?

Some conservative pundits think that favoritism in college admissions is perfectly fine “we just must be upfront about it.” I’m a bigot & that’s okay, because I’m being honest about it. The Admitting-it-Makes-it-Okay Theory. Hmmmm.

Do we really have that much of a problem just enrolling students based on the merit of their applications and interests? What are the roadblocks to unbiased college admissions? What trips us up and makes us favor one type of student over another? And what, pray tell, keeps some admissions officers up at night fearful of a less than worthy male (viable mate) population?

I wonder when the education ecosystem, unnaturally manipulated, might begin to exhibit signs of a new kind of stress.

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1 Comment

    Trained to be Good little Soldiers and Princesses

    1. I fear the use of Male classrooms with more discipline and more time on task will only lead to more stern and even more harsh treatment and more stereotyping of Males to perform more physical or menial labor to match the growing caste system being portrayed in the media against Males today. These attempts to focus on genetics, learning differences, male role models, or cater to more activity or instruction are destined to failure. The problem is sociological from day one. It is differential treatment Males experience that is creating this problem. Please read Learning Theory and other related articles on this subject.

    Females are leaving the domestic role for information age skills and income. The nineteenth century belief Females should be protected has created much protection and support for Females from day one. Since Females are not required by society to be strong, it is considered proper to not only protect them but to also lavish much mental, emotional, social, academic, support, knowledge, and skills from day one. This creates lower average stress and lots of supported skills that enable girls to really do well in the information age. Girls are also given love, honor, respect, and support simply for being girls. This makes learning and development of skills and competing for jobs somewhat easier for they are given the essentials of self-worth simply for being girls. All of this makes girls “very well prepared” to compete in the information age. This support and protection continues even into adulthood. Today this allows not only much economic advantage but also maintains the same protected freedoms of expression to give verbal, silent abuse, and hollow kindness to Males when they have some advantage (look at how the media allows this).

    Males and also Females (who tend to reflect for some reason their protected world upon Males) really do not understand how differential treatment from day one is providing Females with such an advantage that is creating the Growing international Male Crisis.

    Males are given love, honor, support, respect, care, etc. only on the condition of sufficient achievement, money, power, etc. This is what makes Males very competitive; they are competing for feelings of self-worth as reflected upon them by society if they have sufficiency of those things. When they are doing anything they are being weighed and given only the amount of love, honor, respect, and support commensurate with those achievements. Those Males who do not have sufficiency are not only given less of those good things, they are given more aggression by society. This creates a lot more pressure on Males to either succeed in academics, which is good; and if they cannot, then they will search out a more protected and supported area in which they will have some feeling of love, honor, and respect from their peer group.

    Since our society is still following even in the information age, the belief Males should be strong, it still allows much aggression from an early age upon Males to make them tough. It also holds that Males should not be given mental/emotional/social/academic support, love, kindness, and care for fear of coddling the Male. This is so the Male can become a good little soldier to defend family and country. The problem with this idea is that it creates high average stress that impedes learning and creates along it more tension that leads more activity in Males and far less attention to mental/emotional development. This is why girls appear to mature faster, for Males are not given the same mental/emotional/social supports. This higher average stress and lack of supports accumulate to create a large deficit in learning for Males.

    Now in the information age, Males are competing with Females who have been well supported from day one and Males are beginning fall behind big time, especially from women in their 20’s and early 30’s.
    http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSN0334472920070803

    Men are not only losing jobs, they are losing out on feelings of self-worth, namely love, honor, and respect from society. It is plainly spelled out in the media that when Males appear weak, it is okay to give them more verbal aggression, more abuse, and more neglect. Since Men have been brainwashed to believe they are better (perhaps deserving of more harsh treatment and neglect) they are now finding out that in real life such treatment is somehow helping women to succeed above them. Given the horrible myth of fixed intelligences taught in our society or simply working harder, many men are falsely believing they are less intelligent and/or not working hard enough. Given this false information, they may truly feel threatened by those women who are succeeding while they are not. Society itself and its media are now working against the Male to place Male’s into perceived positions of being more suitable for menial labor and for Females to be placed into more white collar, management positions. The Male is now facing much more abuse on the job. Many low paid jobs are also riddled with much abuse, intimidation, and constant berating by managers over them. In more cases, women managers are the ones doing this. Yes, in society men who take jobs in lower more menial positions are given more abuse. It seems women working those jobs are somewhat more protected by society from this abuse. Many men are opting out of the workforce to protect their mental/emotional health, which they feel is more important to them than a paycheck.

    By ann duckworth on June 28th, 2009

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