It only seems fair, as there are already two boards devoted to questions for me...
What do you think of affirmative action for males, either de jure, or de facto as in this article below?
Threats to college-diversity programs pose risks for boys
As the college counselor at Cincinnati Country Day School, a private co-ed high school, Joe Runge has noticed that more boys than girls are accepted to their first-choice colleges.
Adding the numbers over two years, Runge found that 70% of the school's boys were admitted early to favored schools, compared with 55% of girls. The differences aren't explained by boys' grades, activities or performance on admissions tests. Rather, what Runge came across is a new form of affirmative action quietly used by many colleges: admissions preferences awarded to boys to maintain balance at a time when more girls than boys attend college -- and have stronger academic qualifications.
The admissions preferences allow schools to maintain the diversity that enriches campuses where 56% of all students at four-year colleges are female. By using less-rigorous academic standards for male applicants, colleges keep freshman classes from swinging too far out of balance. They also provide needed recognition that grades and test scores provide an incomplete picture of what boys can contribute to a school.
In fact, colleges routinely manipulate their admissions criteria to attract the students they believe will create the best mix. That's why talented athletes often have lower average grades and test scores than their classmates, and why children of alumni and generous donors get favored treatment.
But affirmative action programs for boys raise legal questions. The preference programs that some colleges use to expand the number of minority students they admit are under review by the U.S. Supreme Court. Some lawyers say that if the high court bans the practices that colleges use to foster racial diversity, they will use the decision to challenge the legality of admissions preferences for gender balance. That would have important implications for colleges quietly committed to ensuring that males don't become increasingly scarce on college campuses.
Better odds for boys
According to USA TODAY research and interviews with both admissions directors and college consultants, private, four-year colleges routinely accept boys over girls who have better applications. The data colleges provide for surveys and guidebooks show male applicants' chances of being accepted are often three to 10 percentage points higher than girls'. At Pomona College in California, for example, 35% of male applicants are accepted, compared with 24% of female applicants, according to U.S. News & World Report data for the class of 2005. At Brown University in Rhode Island, 18% of male applicants get in vs. 15% of females.
Even some public colleges treat boys' applications differently. At Virginia's prestigious College of William & Mary, 42% of male applicants were accepted last year, compared with 32% of female applicants. Karen Cottrell, associate provost for enrollment, says boys' applications don't receive preferential treatment. Girls typically have better high school transcripts, which count most heavily in admissions decisions. But she says male applicants' average SAT scores are higher: 1,347, compared with 1,323 for women.
Most college admissions officers refuse to discuss the special preferences boys' applications receive. An exception is Robert Massa, director of admissions at Pennsylvania's Dickinson College. Massa readily admits tilting the admissions scale toward boys. At Dickinson, the male-female ratio is 45-55. Without preferences for male applicants, the percentage of men would drop as low as 38%, he says.
Another institution that concedes it isn't gender-blind is Hobart and William Smith in Geneva, N.Y. Though it looks like a traditional co-ed college, Hobart-Smith is two colleges: Hobart, which accepts men, and William Smith, which accepts women. Combined, their male-female ratio is nearly 50-50. On average, though, men at Hobart ranked in the top quarter of their high school classes; women at William Smith ranked in the top fifth.
Admissions officers cite good reasons for stretching their standards to find more boys. At many colleges, gender-blind admissions would result in such a heavy concentration of female students that the character of the campuses would be fundamentally altered. "Diversity in any form -- racial, geographic, economic and, yes, gender -- contributes to the learning environment because it encourages different perspectives and forces confrontation, which enhances learning," Dickinson's Massa said.
Useful tool faces challenges
If that argument sounds familiar, it should. Several universities use it to defend the practice of awarding minority students admissions priority. This summer, the Supreme Court is expected to decide the constitutionality of racial preferences used at the University of Michigan. The university contends its affirmative action programs are both legal and valuable tools for fostering campus diversity. But opponents, including the Bush administration, argue that the plans amount to a quota system that illegally discriminates against whites.
Both sides expect the high court's decision will clarify the role that diversity can play in decisions made by colleges and broader society. But it could complicate colleges' efforts to attract more boys.
When courts strike down minority-preference programs, they deny colleges an effective way to ensure that their students reflect the diversity of the taxpayers who fund the schools. They also send the troubling message that only objective measures, such as grades and standardized test scores, are legally acceptable admissions criteria.
Strict admissions formulas present problems for many minority applicants -- and boys. African-Americans typically score lower on standardized college admissions tests than their white counterparts, regardless of income. Increasingly, even the most academically talented boys never catch up to girls in high school grade point averages. College admissions officers say the problem begins when they enter high school, a time when many boys struggle.
If colleges lose the flexibility to consider those factors, they would face an awkward dilemma. They would be free to continue adjusting their admissions standards to accept star athletes, gifted musicians and children of alumni or generous donors. But they would lose the latitude to make admissions decisions that guarantee a rich mixture of students that improves the education process, enhances campus life and better prepares students for today's diverse society.
http://www.ncpa.org/iss/edu/2003/pd052303d.html