Inside Higher Ed
March 27, 2006
When admissions officers gather to create a freshman class, there is a large elephant in the room, wrote Jennifer Delahunty Britz, in The New York Times last week: the desire to minimize gender imbalance in their classes. Britz, the admissions dean at Kenyon College, wrote that her institution gets far more applications from women than from men and that, as a result, men are "more valued applicants." Britz discussed a female candidate who was considered borderline by the Kenyon team but who -- had she been a he -- would have been admitted without hesitation.
Why is it important to favor male applicants? "Beyond the availability of dance partners for the winter formal, gender balance matters in ways both large and small on a residential college campus. Once you become decidedly female in enrollment, fewer males and, as it turns out, fewer females find your campus attractive," Britz wrote.
Full Story: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/03/27/admit
Showing posts with label Jennifer Delahunty Britz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jennifer Delahunty Britz. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
To All the Girls I've Rejected
The New York Times
By JENNIFER DELAHUNTY BRITZ
Published: March 23, 2006
A FEW days ago I watched my daughter Madalyn open a thin envelope from one of the five colleges to which she had applied. "Why?" was what she was obviously asking herself as she handed me the letter saying she was waitlisted.
Why, indeed? She had taken the toughest courses in her high school and had done well, sat through several Saturday mornings taking SAT's and the like, participated in the requisite number of extracurricular activities, written a heartfelt and well-phrased essay and even taken the extra step of touring the campus.
She had not, however, been named a National Merit finalist, dug a well for a village in Africa, or climbed to the top of Mount Rainier. She is a smart, well-meaning, hard-working teenage girl, but in this day and age of swollen applicant pools that are decidedly female, that wasn't enough. The fat acceptance envelope is simply more elusive for today's accomplished young women.
Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/23/opinion/23britz.html?_r=1
By JENNIFER DELAHUNTY BRITZ
Published: March 23, 2006
A FEW days ago I watched my daughter Madalyn open a thin envelope from one of the five colleges to which she had applied. "Why?" was what she was obviously asking herself as she handed me the letter saying she was waitlisted.
Why, indeed? She had taken the toughest courses in her high school and had done well, sat through several Saturday mornings taking SAT's and the like, participated in the requisite number of extracurricular activities, written a heartfelt and well-phrased essay and even taken the extra step of touring the campus.
She had not, however, been named a National Merit finalist, dug a well for a village in Africa, or climbed to the top of Mount Rainier. She is a smart, well-meaning, hard-working teenage girl, but in this day and age of swollen applicant pools that are decidedly female, that wasn't enough. The fat acceptance envelope is simply more elusive for today's accomplished young women.
Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/23/opinion/23britz.html?_r=1
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