As admission officers select the class of 2010 from an applicant pool that is 60 percent female, Brown stands out as one of the more striking examples of the growing gender gap in American higher education.
The University's 2004-2005 statistics show an undergraduate population of approximately 54 percent women and 46 percent men, one of the largest differentials among its peers. Over the past 10 years, however, the margin has remained fairly constant, rising only 3 percent since 1993-1994.
Since at least 1993, Brown has had a female majority in its undergraduate population. By comparison, Harvard University first admitted more women than men in 2004 (for the class of 2008). According to statistics from the fall of 2004, Yale University and Cornell University both had a 50 percent female enrollment rate, while the University of California, Berkeley was 54 percent female.
Despite the gender ratio of this year's 15,871-person regular decision applicant pool at Brown, Dean of Admissions James Miller '73 said that his office "pays more attention to quality than to gender" in acceptance decisions. He sees the trend as one that is "creeping a little each year, but that is somewhat stable."
According to Miller, there is some concern among prospective parents about the gender proportions. Miller said that most questions he gets about the gap come from parents of female applicants who worry that their daughters' gender may adversely affect their chances of admittance.
In spite of the increasing gap, Miller said the University has not yet taken any measures to "specially target" males. While the issue is one that admission officers "do spend time thinking about," there are no measures currently in place to make any changes to the admissions process, he said.
While the percentage of women enrolled in many universities has grown nationally over the past decade to make up just over half of the undergraduate population, some speculate it will grow to a much larger proportion.
Social commentators such as Katha Pollitt, columnist for The Nation, have speculated that in the near future, the gap will widen even further to a 60 percent to 40 percent ratio of women to men.
The phenomenon has re-cently garnered considerable media attention and is now widely acknowledged, but research into the origins and causes of the gender gap has been inconclusive. Many commentators have hypothesized that the emphasis in early education on verbal skills and restrained classroom behavior have placed males at a disadvantage in comparison to their female counterparts, many of whom are naturally disposed to excel under these conditions.
Professor of Education Cyn-thia GarcÃa Coll suggested that the trend may be a result of the increasing efforts to "empower" females from a younger age. She said that girls have always performed better than boys in the traditional classroom, but in the past 40 years they have been given "a sense of possibility that was not there before" and have taken advantage of the opportunities presented to them.
Miller speculated that the decreasing percentage of males in higher-level education is linked to the maturation process. He noted that since "most males mature intellectually a bit behind most females," they may not be ready to enter college directly after high school. He said that in his experience, even all-male education cannot really address the issue of the slower development of most men compared with women. The problem, he said, is that "the current system demands that students are ready at age 18, but that is not always the case."
The percentage of male undergraduate enrollment may be decreasing overall, but the large proportion of men earning degrees in science and engineering continues to draw attention. According to the National Science Foundation, the percentage of women earning doctoral degrees in science and engineering has increased by 21 percent from 1966 to 2001, but women still lag behind men, earning 37 percent of the degrees awarded.
The University has establi-shed programs such as Women in Science and Engineering to encourage women to pursue these concentrations and provide support in future workplaces. Miller said that WiSE has "really helped to make good strides, particularly in engineering."
In response to some pundits' worries about the disappearance of men from higher education, GarcÃa Coll said that "up until now, women have been underrepresented in everything - did anyone say that was a problem before?"
