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

For the 11th 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.

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.

We also remind viewers that the admissions cycle for the Class of 2025 that began school in the fall of 2021 was far from normal. The global pandemic had a major impact on students’ plans for college, parents’ ability to pay for college, and the willingness of students to be on campus. A year ago, enrollments were down at many schools due to the ongoing pandemic. This year, enrollments at many schools have increased substantially. Some of this increase is due to the fact that the number of students who took a gap year between high school and college due to the pandemic and enrolled this past fall..

We also note we had a lower response rate to our survey than we had in years prior to the pandemic. In all likelihood, this was due to the pandemic and many college employees working at home without access to traditional communication channels and institutional resources.

Of the 17 high-ranking liberal arts colleges for which we have data, women were a majority of the entering students at 13 schools. Two years ago before the pandemic, 18 of the 21 colleges in our survey had a majority of women in their entering classes.

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 61.6 percent women. This is the highest percentage in our survey.

Women as a Percentage of First-Year Enrollments at High-Ranking Liberal Arts Colleges, 2021

Among the leading liberal arts colleges in our survey, three years ago Oberlin College in Ohio had the highest percentage of women in its entering class. This year, Oberlin ranks second. Women make up 58.6 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. Four years ago, women made up 62.4 percent of the entering students at Macalester. But this year, women are just 54.9 percent of the entering class. This puts Macalester College eighth in our rankings.

Women make up 56 percent or more of the entering class at Colgate University in New York, Pomona College in California, Amherst College in Massachusetts, and Haverford in Pennsylvania.

Hamilton College in New York, Wesleyan University in Connecticut, Bates College in Maine, and Middlebury College in Vermont all had entering classes that were at least 53 percent women.

Women are 47.2 percent of the entering class at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, the lowest level in our survey. Women are also less than half of the entering class at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, and Bowdoin College in Maine. A year ago, only 46.9 percent of the entering students at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California. This was the lowest level of any college in this year’s survey. This year, women make up 49.8 percent of the entering class at Harvey Mudd College, just one woman student short of gender parity.

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. But three years ago, 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. Two years ago, nine liberal arts colleges showed a one-year increase in women students in their entering classes, and 12 showed a decline. In 2020 at the height of the pandemic, nine showed an increase in the number of women in their entering classes and 11 showed a decline.

This year, all responding liberal arts colleges have more women in their entering class than was the case a year ago. As stated, the major reason is that overall enrollments have increased from the down year of 2020 due to the pandemic. But some of the increases have been dramatic.

The largest increase of 48 percent occurred at Macalester College. There are 484 women in this year’s entering class compared to 327 last year and 285 two years ago. The number of women in the entering classes at Amherst College in Massachusettsknns Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, each showed at least a 30 percent increase in the number of women in the first-year class. Colgate University, Pomona College, and Lafayette College also had 20 percent increases in the number of women first-year students.

One-Year Gainers and Losers in First-Year Enrollments of Women at High-Ranking Liberal Arts Colleges, 2021

The smallest increases in the number of women students were at Bucknell University and Washington and Lee University.