First-Year Women at the Nation’s Leading Liberal Arts Colleges

For the fourth year in a row, WIAReport has surveyed the nation’s highest-ranking co-educational liberal arts colleges to determine the percentage of women in this year’s entering classes. This year, for the third time, we also report on gender differences in acceptance rates at these schools and whether women have made gains in enrollments at these colleges compared to where they were a year ago.

We note here that several of the nation’s leading liberal arts colleges are educational institutions for women. These include Smith College, Bryn Mawr College, Wellesley College, Scripps College, and Mount Holyoke College. Because only women are admitted and enroll at these highly regarded colleges, they were not included in this survey which focuses on gender differences in enrollments and acceptance rates.

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Of the 19 high-ranking liberal arts colleges that responded to our survey, women were a majority of the entering students at 13 schools while there were more men than women in the entering classes at only six liberal arts schools. A year ago when 22 high-ranking liberal arts colleges responded to our survey, women were a majority of the entering students at 17 schools.

There are wide variations in the percentage of women in the first-year classes at these highly rated liberal arts institutions. Three years ago, Oberlin College in Ohio had the highest percentage of women in its first-year class. Two years ago, Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, had the highest percentage of women in its entering class. Last year and again this year women make up the largest percentage of the entering class at Macalester College among the liberal arts colleges that responded to our survey. Women make up 63 percent of the entering students at Macalester this year, up from 59.3 percent a year ago.

Oberlin College, Colgate University, and Vassar College all have entering classes that are at least 55 percent women.

At the other extreme, women make up only 47.2 percent of the entering students at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California. That is the lowest percentage of women at any of the nation’s leading liberal arts colleges in our survey. This prestigious school is heavily oriented toward STEM disciplines where women have traditionally been underrepresented.

Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, has the second lowest percentage of women in its entering class at 47.6 percent. Tied with Trinity for the second lowest percentage of women first-year students is Pomona College in Claremont, California. The only other three high-ranking liberal arts colleges where men are a majority of the entering class are Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California, and Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania.

Two years ago there were more leading liberal arts colleges that showed a drop in women first-year students than those that posted a gain. Last year and again this year, the opposite is true. For the 19 schools for which we have data for each year, 13 show an increase in women in their entering classes. Only six show a decline.

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Bates College in Maine led the group with a large 11.6 percent increase in the number of first-year women students. At Oberlin College in Ohio, the number of women in the entering class is up 7.8 percent from a year ago. No other leading liberal arts college in our survey show an increase of more than 3.6 percent.

In contrast, the number of entering women students at Harvey Mudd College is down almost 9 percent from a year ago. Claremont McKenna College has 7.6 percent fewer women in its first-year class than was the case a year ago. Other top liberal arts colleges that show a decline in women first-year students were Colgate University, Grinnell College, Hamilton College, and Vassar College.

It is well known that nationwide women outpace men in college enrollments, graduation rates, and degrees earned. Because of a large and growing gender gap in enrollments at many colleges and universities, it has become easier for men to gain admission to some colleges and universities. Now, just because men have a higher acceptance rate than women at a given institution does not necessarily mean that men have received an unfair admissions advantage. A particular college or university may simply have had an outstanding pool of male applicants in a given year.

We will simply present the data and let readers make their own conclusions. In most cases, differences in acceptance rates were small. Of the 19 highly rated liberal arts colleges that supplied data, we find that women were accepted at a higher rate than men at only six institutions. This is down from seven a year ago.

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The greatest difference was at Harvey Mudd College, which as stated is heavily focused on STEM disciplines. At this highly rated college, 22.5 percent of women were accepted for admission compared to only 9.9 percent of male applicants. Thus, there was a very large acceptance rate gap in favor of women of 12.6 percentage points. A year ago, the gap in acceptance rates in favor of women at Harvey Mudd College was 19.2 percentage points

The next highest acceptance rate gap was at Lafayette. There, women had an acceptance rate that was 5.5 percentage points higher than the acceptance rate for men. Lafayette, which did not accept women until 1971, has a large contingent of engineering students, a field where women are traditionally not well represented. The only other high-ranking liberal arts colleges where women enjoyed a slim advantage in acceptance rates were Bucknell University, Macalester College, Colgate University, and Trinity College.

Vassar College, which was once a women’s college, has an acceptance rate for men that is significantly higher than the rate for women. In 2014, Vassar accepted 33.7 percent of male applicants but only 19.0 percent of women applicants. This is, by a large margin, the largest acceptance rate gap in favor of men at the nation’s leading liberal arts colleges. Davidson College, Bates College, Pomona College, and Swarthmore College were the only other leading liberal arts colleges where the acceptance rate for men was more than 4 percentage points higher than the acceptance rate for women.

WIAReport invites readers to comment on these statistics. Do you think women applicants are receiving an unfair disadvantage in admissions decisions at these colleges so that there is a greater gender balance in enrollments on these campuses? If this is so, do you agree with the strategy or should these college admit applicants without regard to gender, even it mean there will be far more women on these campuses than men?