Male applicants for the Class of 2013 outnumbered female applicants to Geneseo; a shift in a long-standing trend that has resulted in lower acceptance rates for females than males in recent years.
From 2005 to 2008, there were, on average, over 2,000 more female applicants than male applicants to the college. Therefore, female applicants on average were less likely to be offered admission than their male counterparts.
In 2005, the acceptance rate for female applicants was 40 percent, and by 2008 it had decreased to just 34 percent. In comparison, the acceptance rate for male applicants throughout the period remained relatively stable at about 42 percent.In 2009, these trends shifted dramatically as only 27 percent of male applicants were admitted, compared to 54 percent of female applicants.
The staggering differences in acceptance rates from the year prior were caused primarily by changes in the applicant pool.While women still outnumber men on campus, the gender balance has become increasingly neutral over time.
The college is currently 57 percent female, down from 59 percent in 2005.Nationwide, women have generally outnumbered men at American universities and colleges since the 1980s. According to the New York Times and USA Today, the national male-female ratio is 43:57, though male enrollment tends to be higher at Ivy League and engineering or technical schools.
According to these sources, women graduate from high school at a rate of about 64 percent compared to 60 percent for men.Julie Meyer Rao, director of the Institutional Research Office, said that the gender imbalance at Geneseo is sometimes exaggerated and that she has had to correct statistics published in the Princeton Review, which once incorrectly listed the ratio of women to men as 2:1.
Rao said that it is not unusual for a liberal arts college to be 55-65 percent female and that Geneseo's gender statistics are "not atypical, especially considering [Geneseo's] heavy focus on education."The increase in male applicants can be partially attributed to the growth of the biology and psychology departments, as well as the School of Business, Rao said, noting that the related majors tend to attract male applicants in particular.
She also said that the male-female ratio of a cohort class has no bearing on admissions decisions.