The Washington Post analyzed admission rates for men and women at about 200 prominent colleges using federal data for the 2014 cycle, the latest available. There were significant gaps favoring men at many colleges and women at others. But a large number of schools had no gender gaps or minimal gaps in admission rates.
The schools were included in the review if they ranked among the top 100 in the most recent U.S. News and World Report lists of national liberal arts colleges and national universities. The analysis omits single-gender colleges, such as Smith, Wellesley and Barnard.
There are many reasons for the gaps, depending on the school’s history and its volume of male and female applications. But a key reason at some schools is that admissions officers are seeking as much as possible to give their students a thoroughly co-educational experience.
The College of William and Mary is a case in point. It has a 14-point gap favoring men, one of the largest in the country for a school of its prominence. That’s a function of the huge number of women who apply to the public college in Williamsburg, Va. But the school has an interest in making sure that the male/female ratio of its students doesn’t become too imbalanced.
“We are, after all, the College of William and Mary, not the College of Mary and Mary,” an enrollment chief at the school once said.
Following are national universities with a gender gap of at least 3 percentage points favoring men. Figures shown are admission rates for women and men, as well as point differentials.
- William and Mary (28 percent women, 42 percent men) 14 points
- Pepperdine (31 percent women, 44 percent men) 13 points
- Indiana-Bloomington (75 percent women, 83 percent men) 8 points
- George Washington (41 percent women, 48 percent men) 7 points
- Brandeis (33 percent women, 39 percent men) 6 points
- Tulsa (37 percent women, 43 percent men) 6 points
- Wake Forest (32 percent women, 38 percent men) 6 points
- Tufts (15 percent women, 20 percent men) 5 points
- Brown (7 percent women, 11 percent men) 4 points
- Southern Methodist (51 percent women, 55 percent men) 4 points
- Stony Brook (39 percent women, 43 percent men) 4 points
- Vanderbilt (11 percent women, 15 percent men) 4 points
- Connecticut (48 percent women, 51 percent men) 3 points
- SUNY Binghamton (43 percent women, 46 percent men) 3 points
Following are national universities with a gender gap of at least 3 points favoring women.
- Worcester Polytechnic Institute (54 percent women, 40 percent men) 14 points
- Clark (60 percent women, 46 percent men) 14 points
- Stevens Institute of Tech (53 percent women, 41 percent men) 12 points
- Georgia Tech (41 percent women, 30 percent men) 11 points
- Brigham Young (51 percent women, 41 percent men) 10 points
- Caltech (16 percent women, 6 percent men) 10 points
- Purdue (65 percent women, 55 percent men) 10 points
- Colorado School of Mines (43 percent women, 34 percent men) 9 points
- American (49 percent women, 41 percent men) 8 points
- California-Davis (44 percent women, 36 percent men) 8 points
- Lehigh (39 percent women, 31 percent men) 8 points
- Vermont (77 percent W, 69 percent men) 8 points
- Wisconsin-Madison (61 percent women, 53 percent men) 8 points
- Delaware (71 percent women, 64 percent men) 7 points
- Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (63 percent women, 56 percent men) 7 points
- Iowa (84 percent women, 77 percent men) 7 points
- Marquette (70 percent women, 63 percent men) 7 points
- MIT (13 percent women, 6 percent men) 7 points
- Michigan State (70 percent women, 63 percent men) 7 points
- Texas at Austin (43 percent women, 36 percent men) 7 points
- SUNY Env. Sciences (55 percent women, 48 percent men) 7 points
- Carnegie Mellon (28 percent women, 22 percent men) 6 points
- Penn State (53 percent women, 47 percent men) 6 points
- Boston U. (37 percent women, 32 percent men) 5 points
- Colorado Boulder (87 percent women, 82 percent men) 5 points
- Florida (48 percent women, 43 percent men) 5 points
- Michigan (35 percent women, 30 percent men) 5 points
- UC-Santa Barbara (39 percent women, 34 percent men) 5 points
- Cornell (16 percent women, 12 percent M) 4 points
- Georgia (57 percent women, 53 percent men) 4 points
- Miami of Ohio (68 percent women, 64 percent men) 4 points
- Minnesota-Twin Cities (47 percent women, 43 percent men) 4 points
- N.C. State-Raleigh (54 percent women, 50 percent men) 4 points
- Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst. (40 percent women, 36 percent men) 4 points
- San Diego (48 percent women, 44 percent men) 4 points
- Texas A&M (73 percent women, 69 percent men) 4 points
- Texas Christian (50 percent women, 46 percent men) 4 points
- UC-Irvine (39 percent women, 35 percent men) 4 points
- Virginia (30 percent women, 27 percent men) 3 points
- Baylor (57 percent women, 54 percent men) 3 points
- Case Western Reserve (40 percent women, 37 percent men) 3 points
- Denver (78 percent women, 75 percent men) 3 points
- Massachusetts-Amherst (63 percent women, 60 percent men) 3 points
- Ohio State (54 percent women, 51 percent men) 3 points
- Rutgers-New Brunswick (62 percent women, 59 percent men) 3 points
- UC-Santa Cruz (57 percent women, 54 percent men) 3 points
Following are national liberal arts colleges with a gender gap of at least 3 points favoring men.
- Vassar (19 percent women, 34 percent men) 15 points
- Wheaton of Illinois (64 percent women, 77 percent men) 13 points
- College of the Holy Cross (39 percent women, 49 percent men) 10 points
- Davidson (19 percent women, 26 percent men) 7 points
- Bates (23 percent women, 28 percent men) 5 points
- Pomona (10 percent women, 15 percent men) 5 points
- Soka U. of America (42 percent women, 47 percent men) 5 points
- Swarthmore (15 percent women, 20 percent men) 5 points
- Bowdoin (13 percent women, 17 percent men) 4 points
- Carleton (21 percent women, 25 percent men) 4 points
- Reed (37 percent women, 41 percent men) 4 points
- Richmond (30 percent women, 34 percent men) 4 points
- Haverford (23 percent women, 26 percent men) 3 points
- Kenyon (24 percent women, 27 percent men) 3 points
- Middlebury (16 percent women, 19 percent men) 3 points
- Pitzer (12 percent women, 15 percent men) 3 points
- Skidmore (36 percent women, 39 percent men) 3 points
- Wesleyan (23 percent women, 26 percent men) 3 points
- Williams (18 percent women, 21 percent men) 3 points
Following are national liberal arts colleges with a gender gap of at least 3 points favoring women.
- Harvey Mudd College (23 percent women, 10 percent men) 13 points
- College of the Atlantic (75 percent women, 63 percent men) 12 points
- Earlham (70 percent women, 59 percent men) 11 points
- Lawrence (78 percent women, 67 percent men) 11 points
- Lewis & Clark (71 percent women, 60 percent men) 11 points
- Sewanee-The University of the South (69 percent women, 59 percent men) 10 points
- Allegheny (76 percent women, 67 percent men) 9 points
- DePauw U. (61 percent women, 52 percent men) 9 points
- Luther (75 percent women, 66 percent men) 9 points
- Puget Sound (83 percent women, 74 percent men) 9 points
- Virginia Military Institute (52 percent women, 43 percent men) 9 points
- Wheaton of Mass. (73 percent women, 64 percent men) 9 points
- Beloit (73 percent women, 65 percent men) 8 points
- Centre (75 percent women, 67 percent men) 8 points
- Furman (72 percent women, 64 percent men) 8 points
- Austin (58 percent women, 51 percent men) 7 points
- Bennington (69 percent women, 62 percent men) 7 points
- Southwestern (52 percent women, 45 percent men) 7 points
- St. Lawrence (51 percent women, 44 percent men) 7 points
- St. Olaf (54 percent women, 47 percent men) 7 points
- Connecticut College (40 percent women, 34 percent men) 6 points
- Knox (71 percent women, 65 percent men) 6 points
- Lafayette (33 percent women, 27 percent men) 6 points
- St. John’s in New Mexico (85 percent women, 79 percent men) 6 points
- Dickinson (50 percent women, 45 percent men) 5 points
- Hendrix (85 percent women, 80 percent men) 5 points
- Hobart & William Smith (50 percent women, 45 percent men) 5 points
- Muhlenberg (55 percent women, 50 percent men) 5 points
- St. John’s in Annapolis (90 percent women, 85 percent men) 5 points
- Willamette (83 percent women, 78 percent men) 5 points
- Colby (30 percent women, 26 percent men) 4 points
- College of Wooster (61 percent women, 57 percent men) 4 points
- Millsaps (59 percent women, 55 percent men) 4 points
- Ursinus (85 percent women, 81 percent men 4 points
- Bucknell U. (32 percent women, 29 percent men) 3 points
- Cornell College (75 percent women, 72 percent men) 3 points
- Gustavus Adolphus (62 percent women, 59 percent men) 3 points
- Hope College (79 percent women, 76 percent men) 3 points
- Illinois Wesleyan (62 percent women, 59 percent men) 3 points
- Kalamazoo (71 percent women, 68 percent men) 3 points
- Occidental (43 percent women, 40 percent men) 3 points