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

For the ninth 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 eighth 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 to on-campus undergraduate programs at these highly regarded colleges, they were not included in this survey which focuses on gender differences in enrollments and acceptance rates.

Of the 21 high-ranking liberal arts colleges for which we have data, women were a majority of the entering students at 18 schools. A year ago, 20 of the 21 colleges in our survey had a majority of women in their entering classes. Two years ago, women were a majority of the entering students at only 13 schools.

There are wide variations in the percentage of women in the first-year classes at these highly rated liberal arts institutions. Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, which was a women’s college until 1970, has an entering class that is 59.3 percent women. This is the highest percentage in our survey.

Women as a Percentage of First-Year Enrollments at High-Ranking Liberal Arts Colleges, 2019

Among the leading liberal arts colleges in our survey, a year ago Oberlin College in Ohio had the highest percentage of women in its entering class. This year, Oberlin ranks second. There are 408 women in Oberlin’s Class of 2023. They make up 58.5 percent of all first-year students.

For five years in a row ending in 2017, women made up the largest percentage of the entering class at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, among the liberal arts colleges for which we had data. Two years ago, women made up 62.4 percent of the entering students at Macalester. But this year, women are just 56.8 percent of the entering class. This puts Macalester College third in our rankings.

Colgate University, Wesleyan University, Pomona College, and Middlebury College all have first-year classes that are at least 54 percent women. Last year, Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, was the only liberal arts college in our survey where men were a majority of the first-year students. This year, women make up nearly 54 percent of the entering class.

Women make up only 46.9 percent of the entering students at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. This is the lowest level of any college in this year’s survey. The only other two leading liberal arts colleges where men make up a majority of the first-year class are Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California, and Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania.

For the past several years, just about an even number of liberal arts colleges showed a one-year increase – or a one-year decrease – in the number of women in their entering classes. That was not the case this year. That year, 19 of the 21 liberal arts colleges in our survey showed an increase in the number of women in their entering classes. Only two showed a decline from the previous year. This year nine liberal arts colleges showed a one-year increase in women students in their entering classes and 12 showed a decline.

The largest increase of 12.2 percent occurred at Middlebury College in Vermont. There are 377 women in this year’s entering class compared to 336 a year ago. The other liberal arts colleges that showed at least a 5 percent in increase in the number of women in their entering classes were Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, Bates College, and Claremont McKenna College in California.

One-Year Gainers and Losers in First-Year Enrollments of Women at High-Ranking Liberal Arts Colleges

The leading liberal arts colleges in our survey that showed a double-digit decline in the number of women in their first-year class are Grinnell College in Iowa, Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, and Macalester College. All three of these colleges still have a majority of women in their entering classes.

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 11 institutions. Men were accepted at a higher rate than women at eight liberal arts colleges.

Gender Differences in Acceptance Rates at High-Ranking Liberal Arts Colleges, 2019

The greatest difference in favor of women was at Harvey Mudd College, which is heavily focused on STEM disciplines. At this highly rated college, 23.8 percent of women were accepted for admission compared to only 9.2 percent of male applicants. Thus, there was a very large acceptance rate gap in favor of women of 14.6 percentage points.

Lafayette College, which did not accept women until 1971, and has a large contingent of engineering students, a field where women are traditionally not well represented, also accepted women at a significantly higher rate than men.

At Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, the acceptance rate for women was nearly 6 percentage points higher than it was for men.

Vassar College had an acceptance rate for men in 2019 of 30.1 percent. For women applicants, the acceptance rate was 20.7 percent. This was the biggest admissions advantage for men of any college in our survey. We note that the admissions advantage for men at Vassar College is significantly smaller than it has been in recent years.

At Wesleyan University, 19.6 percent of men were accepted for admission compared to 14.4 percent of women. No other high-ranking liberal arts college had an acceptance rate for men that was more than 3.3 percentage points higher than the rate for women.