For the Class of 2019, the acceptance rate was skewed in favor of men.
Forty-eight percent of men and 40 percent of women who applied to GW as freshmen last year were accepted, according to GW’s Office of Institutional Research and Planning. At GW and nationwide, women enroll in college at higher rates than men, but that 8 percentage point gap makes GW the toughest for women to be admitted to compared to its peer schools.
Senior Associate Provost for Enrollment Management Laurie Koehler said the gender balance of a class is “one of several enrollment strategies” GW considers in the admissions process. She declined to say if and how GW is working to ensure the admission rate for women does not become more competitive.
Men make up 43 percent of the Class of 2019, a number that reflects a slight decline in male enrollment at GW over 10 years. Koehler said because women tend to enroll at universities at higher rates than men, the Office of Admissions admits men at a higher rate. The percentage of students who enroll at a school after being accepted is known as a school’s yield rate, which can be hard to predict when students apply to multiple schools.
“Traditionally, males yield at a lower rate than females, therefore we do admit them at a higher rate,” Koehler said.
This year, women surpassed men in the attainment of higher education degrees for the first time since the Census Bureau tracked that data in 1940.
At Emory and Georgetown Universities, two of GW’s peer schools, women were 2 percent less likely to be accepted than men in 2014. At the University of Miami and Duke University, women were just half a percentage point less likely to be accepted than men, though experts say schools with football teams see more male applicants overall.
A loophole in Title IX, the federal law that bars institutions that accept federal dollars from discrimination based on gender, allows private universities to consider sex in the admissions process.
Universities across the country have struggled to maintain gender-balanced campuses over the last several decades, and experts said that once schools enroll 60 percent women, they can become less appealing to applicants of both sexes because the dating scene on campus skews in favor of men.
At Southern Methodist and Vanderbilt universities, two of GW’s other peer institutions, women were nearly 4 percent more likely to be accepted than men.
Jon Birger, the author of a book about gender imbalances on college campuses, “Date-onomics,” said institutions in most western countries enroll more women, who tend to be more qualified applicants.
“Women are better applicants, but if you look at private colleges, they’re essentially allowed to discriminate against female applicants. GW is not violating Title IX – they’re a private school. All they’re doing is utilizing the exemption,” he said.
Experts said institutions pointed to investments in academic programs, like engineering programs, as ways to attract more men and noted that men tend to gravitate to schools with Greek life.
Birger said institutions like GW and his alma mater, Brown University, have invested millions in their engineering schools to appeal to male applicants. The University spent $275 million to build the Science and Engineering Hall several years ago and have added more than 40 faculty members to the School of Engineering and Applied Science in recent years, investments Birger said could bring more men to campus.
“I’m going to guarantee you part of the reason they’re investing in engineering is to fix the gender ratio. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say the investment in STEM is part of this. It may not be the first, it may be the second or third or fourth consideration, but that’s a reasonable approach,” he said.
Robert Chernak, the former vice president for student and academic support services, said the fields GW specializes in, like communication and public health, tend to attract more women.
“You do have to probably make a conscientious decision to admit more men who are at the margin in terms of your admission standards than you would women,” he said. “Not that you would publicly state that you’re giving preferential treatment, but without taking that into account, you’re not going to maintain an even a 60‒40 ratio.”
