RACHEL JOHNSON
Sraff Writer
Prospective Pepperdine freshmen around the world are likely breathing a sign of relief this week after suffering through the usual deadline panic Sunday, the application deadline for Seaver College. Considering recent trends, this group of fresh applicants is also likely to be somewhat lopsided, with women applicants outnumbering men.
According to Pepperdine’s Office of Admissions, the freshman class in 2005 was 59 percent female and 41 percent male as compared to 2003 when it was 57 to 43. According to an estimate by the Census Bureau, the national ratio of females to males on college campuses across the United States today is 57-to-43, a reversal from the late 1960s and well beyond the nearly even splits in the mid-1970s.
The question on everyone’s mind: Why and for how long will the gender gap continue to grow?
Considering the continuously growing gap across the United States, staff members in Pepperdine’s Admissions office expect Pepperdine’s gap to widen along with it.
“It’s happening and in all likelihood it will continue to happen,” said Dave Staples, associate director of Admissions. “We have no reason to think that it won’t [widen] in the near future because the gender gap across the country is growing and because the number of female applicants is much higher than the number of male applicants everywhere.”
At this point the office can only speculate as to the reasons for the growing gap, Staples said.
Some attribute the gender gap to the fact that Pepperdine is a small liberal arts school. This hypothesis is supported by research that shows that Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y., is only 26 percent male and Wheaton College in Norton, Mass. – only 36 percent. Both are small liberal arts institutions similar to Pepperdine.
Statistics from the 2005 edition of “The Best 357 Colleges” indicate that small liberal arts institutions are not the only ones with an imbalanced gender ratio, however. Arizona State University is only 48 percent male and UCLA stands even lower at 44 percent, proof that large public schools suffer from the gender gap as well.
Where, then have all the men have gone?
Educator William Draves of the Wisconsin-based Learning Resources Networks said he believes the answer to be one of scientific nature. He attributed the problem to elementary schools’ refusal to acknowledge that boys and girls learn differently.
“Their neurology is different,” Draves said. “The hard-wiring differences [between boys and girls] are causing this.”
Family therapist Michael Gurian, author of the recently-published “The Minds of Boys: Saving Our Sons from Falling Behind in School and Life,” agreed with Draves. According to Gurian, gender studies “really…got people to focus on girls [but] there is no big network that protects the needs of boys.”
His book argues that elementary and secondary schools aren’t accommodating the developmental needs of boys.
USA Today writer Mary Beth Marklein took a different approach in her Oct. 19 article on gender gap, claiming that the blue-collar jobs that once attracted male high school graduates are drying up. Marklein says more young men are dropping out of high school and college, and as the gender gap widens, concern for the educational goals of boys seems to be gaining traction.
Though answers to why the gender gap has occurred are necessary, the focus must be redirected to finding solutions to correct the problem. Most educators believe the issue is best addressed in elementary and secondary schools. However, some academic officials, surveyed last year, say they wonder if gender should become a more determinant component in admissions decisions.
A study this year of admissions decision-making at 13 liberal arts schools, most with a predominantly female applicant pool, reported that gender was “not a significant determinant” in the admission process.
Authors Sandy Baum and Eban Goodstein found that when a gender preference for men emerged, it occurred at historically female campuses where the number of female applicants reached 55 percent or greater.
The researchers neither support nor oppose affirmative action in regard to gender, but as male enrollment continues to wane on college campuses, “we should be talking about whether it’s reasonable to give preferences to men,” said Baum, a professor at Skidmore College, a liberal arts college in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
Staples said if the gap continues to increase, Pepperdine admissions may have to get proactive about balancing out the men and women.
“It’s at the point at the cusp of needing to be considered if it continues to or the way it might,” Staples said. “We may have to stop and think of strategies to work on issues if we begin to become an overwhelmingly female campus.”
While considering gender as a factor for admissions decisions may bring a comfortable balance back, there’s no denying that it may make a the admissions process even more difficult for females to get accepted to schools.
01-19-2006
