29 March 2006

Are Girls Disadvantaged in College Admissions?

No one who works in college admissions can have been much surprised by the much-discussed New York Times op-ed in which Kenyon College's dean of admissions confessed that male applicants sometimes benefit from colleges' desire to preserve gender balance. (See "To All the Girls I've Rejected," by Jennifer Delahunty Britz, published in the March 23 New York Times.)

To recap: Dean Britz noted that, "in this day and age of swollen applicant pools that are decidedly female," male applicants are much sought-after. Colleges are desperate to maintain a reasonable balance between female and male enrollment. Experience shows that schools that enroll 60 per cent or more women students start to see a sharp fall-off in all applications, from males and females alike. That means that admissions committees may give a male applicant with weaknesses in his record some benefit of the doubt – along with an admissions offer – whereas a female applicant with a similar file will be waitlisted or denied.

As many bloggers and commentators have noted, this is not at all fair. Britz, whose own daughter just came through the admissions wringer with a waitlist decision she couldn't understand, agrees. But it's how things are.

The most disturbing thing about Britz's account of Kenyon College admissions is perhaps not the gender aspect but the sheer brutality of the admissions numbers.

Kenyon is now getting three applications for every space it has to fill. Britz and her staff have to say no to someone, and, as she makes clear in her essay, those someones are often students she would enjoy welcoming to campus.

MIT Admissions Officer Ben Jones recently gave an ever starker account of college admissions in his blog. MIT's admission rate is down to 13 per cent. Jones writes,

In March I go into committee with my colleagues, having narrowed down my top picks to a few hundred people. My colleagues have all done the same. Then the numbers come in: this year's admit rate will be 13%. For every student you admit, you need to let go of seven others.

What's a college applicant to do?

For one thing, be prepared. Don't count on being a sure admit to any selective school. Put effort and care into every one of your college applications.

For another, submit an application that will help you stand out in admissions officers' minds from the mob of other applicants – especially (unfair as it sounds) if you're a girl.

Your essays are your best chance to achieve that kind of visibility. Don't rely on the magnitude of your GPA and test scores or on the length of your extra curricular activities list to make you stand out. No matter how impressive your record is, chances are there will be other applicants who match or exceed it. Instead, use your essays to help the admissions committee see you as the individual person you are. Don't just recap what you did. Say why you sought out those experiences, and how they shaped and changed you.

Your essays are your best chance to let your own, sincere voice come through the mass of application data and persuade an admissions committee that you are someone they want to have at their school.

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