As more women apply to be undergraduates at UW-Madison, mathematically, more must receive the thin envelopes.\
Recent increases in female applicants may have forced college admissions officers nation-wide to scrutinize female applicants a little more closely in fall 2005, according to a March 23 New York Times op-ed article by Jennifer Delahunty Britz.
Although members of UW-Madison's Undergraduate Recruitment, Admissions and Financial Aid Committee stressed women do not receive extra scrutiny and are not admitted at different rates than men, member and obstetrics and gynecology professor for the School of Medicine Theresa Duello said there is a difference between the rates at which male and female students apply to UW-Madison.
Associate Director of UW-Madison's Office of Admissions Tom Reason agreed.
""At the present, there is a bit of a difference clearly in the number of female students enrolling than in the number of male students enrolling, but there's not been really any conversation at all about doing anything differently with female applications than with male applications,"" Reason said.
Similarly, in purely mathematical and demographic terms, as more female than male students apply for undergraduate admission as freshmen, more receive admission.
In fact, this past fall, women accounted for 53.5 percent of UW-Madison's undergraduate student body, according to UW-Madison's Operations, Budgets and Planning Analysis website.
Trying to determine the reason for the greater number of female applicants, however, is a more qualitative and thus more difficult analysis to make, Reason said.
""That's something that gets kicked around admissions circles a lot, certainly in the state of Wisconsin with other UW System admissions officers, and I speculate that in this state it has to do with a technical college system that really provides some opportunities and which is widely publicized and promoted by the legislature and the government,"" Reason said. He said some believe more male students apply to technical or trade schools.
The trend holds true for other Big 10 schools as well. Northwestern University's class of 2009 is 52.1 percent female and 47.9 percent male. Out of 37, 958 total students at Indiana University, 19,646 are female—51.8 percent.
Outside the Big 10 Conference, the disparities soar. The University of Rhode Island's undergraduate population is 57 percent female.
Clare Huhn, committee consultant and associate political and planning analyst for the Academic Planning and Analysis office, said the general sentiment in the office of admissions is that women are more qualified as applicants.
Britz wrote about her experience as an admissions officer at Kenyon College, describing a female applicant with superior extracurricular involvement and leadership experience, about whom the committee had hesitations.
""Few of us sitting around the table were as talented and as directed at age 17 as this young woman,"" Britz claimed. ""Unfortunately, her test scores and grade point average placed her in the middle of our pool. We had to have a debate before we decided to swallow the middling scores and write ‘admit' next to her name.""
Regardless of other colleges' applicant pools, one fact remains clear: More women are applying for undergraduate spots at competitive schools around the country; thus, more must be rejected.
""I admire the brilliant successes of our daughters,"" Britz wrote. ""To parents and the students getting thin envelopes, I apologize for the demographic realities.""
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