College Times

Issue date: 12/4/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Photos.com

Among college administrators it's known as The Boy Problem.

But it's a problem that starts in grade schools, high schools and homes. Boys lag behind girls in being prepared to apply for and be accepted to college.

While American colleges were roughly balanced between male and female students a generation ago, now most schools have more women than men. Some have a lot more.

Nationally, 57 percent of undergraduates are women. And as the applicant pool continues to trend toward women, more schools are reaching the tipping point of having more than 60 percent women.

Why is that a problem? Administrators think that once a school reaches that point it becomes less attractive to both male and female applicants. As one admissions director told U.S. News & World Report last year: "Even women who enroll ... expect to see men on campus. It's not the College of Mary and Mary; it's the College of William and Mary."

Which has led some to have lower admissions standards for boys than girls. They have, in effect, affirmative action for males, including white males.

An admissions officer of a small liberal arts college used a New York Times op-ed article to lament how she had been forced to reject female applicants who were stronger than male applicants, all in the name of gender balance. That fact hit home when her own daughter was applying to colleges and was wait-listed at a school that she should have been well-qualified for.

"We have told today's young women that the world is their oyster," wrote Jennifer Delahunty Britz of Kenyon College. "The problem is, so many of them believed us that the standards for admission to today's most selective colleges are stiffer for women than men. How's that for an unintended consequence of the women's liberation movement."

I expected to see some of these numbers in Washington state colleges. But Phil Ballinger, director of admissions for the University of Washington, told me I wouldn't - at least not in public universities. That would violate state law against preferences based on gender and race.

Among the state of Washington's public four-year universities, only Washington State University has gender parity. The University of Washington is close, with an undergraduate student body of 51.6 percent female.

After that it ranges from 52.5 percent female at Central Washington University to 58 percent at Eastern Washington University and 61.6 percent at the University of Washington Tacoma.

Continued...

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