Nancy Gibbs writes a short, provocative essay in Time Magazine on a troubling topic that many are reluctant to discuss: female college students are generally both more numerous and of a higher quality than their male counterparts. This leads to a widespread imbalance:
Roughly 58% of undergraduates nationally are female, and the girl-boy ratio will probably tip past 60-40 in a few years. The divide is even worse for black males, who are outnumbered on campus by black females 2 to 1.
The response? Lower standards for male applicants is not uncommon.
U.S. News & World Report found that the admissions rate of men at the College of William and Mary, for example, was an average of 12 percentage points higher than that of women–because, as the admissions director memorably told the magazine, “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.”
Read the whole thing.