Gender proves large factor in academic performance
Christine Penington / Reporter
“Don’t be too excited, it’s an estrogen
fest,” junior Kristin Miller recalled telling a friend
from N.C. State University, who had come to Elon for a visit.
Indeed, the imbalance between genders at Elon simply cannot
be overlooked. The seemingly problematic girl to guy ratio is
not just a local problem, though. Elon is an example of the
national trend, in which university males are slowly becoming
a minority group.
A recent article in The Seattle Times outlined the national
trend. “Female college graduates – fewer than
half of all graduates a decade ago – now outnumber
their male counterparts in most industrialized
countries,” the article stated. The current number of
female graduates is amazing compared to ten years ago. A
recent CBS newscast stated that campuses are now around 60
percent female, with women earning 170,000 more bachelor
degrees each year then men. “Women are streaming into
business schools and medical schools, and will be the
majority at the nation’s law schools.”
This trend is not only due to the fact that more women than
men are applying to college, but also that the women are more
qualified. Karen Cottrell, associate provost for enrollment
at the College of William & Mary said girls are making
the grade. “Girls typically have better high school
transcripts,” she said. Research and interviews
conducted by USA Today show that “even the most
academically talented boys never catch up to girls in high
school grade point averages.”
Sociologist Andrew Hacker, author of “Mismatch: The
Growing Gulf between Women and Men,” is not surprised
by the increased number of women on college campuses.
According to Hacker, three of four high school senior girls
report spending an hour or more on homework every day,
compared to about two out of four boys. Statistics showed
boys report, “watching more television than girls do
and spending more time on video games.”
Hacker continues, “It’s almost as if being a man
and being masculine, macho and powerful is not conducive to
being a good student.”
Michael Thompson, a school psychologist who wrote
“Raising Cain” on the academic problems of boys,
agreed with Hacker’s theory.
“Boys hear that the way to shine is athletically. And
boys get a lot of mixed messages about what it means to be
masculine and what it means to be a student. Does being a
good student make you a real man? I don’t think
so… It is not cool.”
Despite speculation that boys simply do not try as hard as
girls, the bottom line is males are slowly becoming a
minority group on many campuses across the nation. The more
diverse a campus, the more ideas and ways of thinking are
represented in the student. Such a large female student body
can potentially promote a homogenous population. This poses
an interesting question, which most schools are dealing with
quietly. Should males be treated as a minority, accepting
less qualified males over females?
Most college admissions officers are reluctant to discuss
special preferences boys’ applications receive.
However, Robert Massa, the director of admissions at
Pennsylvania’s Dickinson College, admits to
“tilting the admissions scale toward boys.” The
male-female ratio at Dickinson is 45-55. Massa said that
without preferences for male applicants, the percentage of
men would drop as low as 38 percent. This is similar to
admissions policies at Wake Forest, in which the school
policy is to maintain 50/50 ratio.
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