The average male applicant to a highly selective college is more qualified than the average female applicant, right? Wrong! In fact, female applicants to elite schools are so much more qualified than their male counterparts. This academic skew is so pronounced that colleges nationwide have implemented a policy that some have termed “Affirmative Action for men.” Ivy Coach’s Brian Taylor is cited in one such article in the New York Times detailing the gender disparity at certain schools caused by the over-qualification of female students relative to the males in their classes. So much for the misogynistic myth of male excellence!

In case the data indicating that girls get higher grades than boys at all academic levels and are more likely to apply for admission to highly selective colleges wasn’t enough to convince naysayers that the future is female, the fact that colleges admit less qualified male applicants to ensure that incredibly imbalanced gender ratios don’t skew their campuses in favor of women should drive home this point! Girls across the world should be proud of what this state of affairs symbolizes about the gender achievement gap, even if it, unfortunately, means that female college applicants are held to a higher standard than their male counterparts at the vast majority of highly selective schools (except STEM-focused schools like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

How Big of an Advantage Do Male Applicants Really Have?

The gender imbalance in favor of males in elite college admissions is not just a slight push in one direction when two applicants of equal qualifications and different genders apply to the same school. As the Washington Post wrote earlier this year, “The high-achieving girl who loses out to a slightly lower-achieving boy — at Brown University, say, where in the 2021-2022­ application cycle, the acceptance rate was 4 percent for girls and 6.7 percent for boys; or at Vassar College, where in 2020, the acceptance rate was 23 percent for girls and 28 percent for boys — what happens to her?” 

This high-achieving girl will likely end up at a less selective school than the under-qualified boy who took her place. Campuses that skew majority female, such as Tulane University, where 63% of the Class of 2027 is female, experience party cultures dominated by men, where scarcity produces outsized male influence on social life. Imagine the rude awakening these female students will face when they end up in a post-graduation world dominated by men where they have to work harder for less pay. 

A majority-female student body might seem utopian, but it fails to prepare students for the patriarchal realities of life after college. It also wreaks havoc on campus dating cultures and creates a situation where male job applicants with a college degree become that much more valuable and sought after in the professional marketplace.

Ivy Coach Supports Gender Balancing, But We Understand the Difficulties Female Students Face

Until the college admissions process as a whole is revolutionized and the many injustices that go into it are rectified, women will continue to be discriminated against by elite college admissions officers. This is the price paid for diverse student bodies on college campuses. However, we at Ivy Coach are as feminist as they come! We believe that every female applicant should be given the same shot for admission into a school like the University of Chicago or Brown University as every male applicant. 

That’s why we’ve made it our mission to help academically ambitious females in high school set themselves apart from everyone else in the applicant pool with the power of a singular admissions hook. Elite college admission is not out of the picture for high-achieving girls — it just takes some strategizing and expert advice! 

Ivy Coach will help your child distinguish herself with an unconventional pursuit that positively captivates admissions officers. Don’t let her slip through the cracks. Give her the female future she deserves!

If you’d like to optimize your daughter’s case for admission to a highly selective college and counteract the adverse effect of gender balancing, fill out our complimentary consultation form, and we’ll be in touch.