Back in olden days–in 1974, to be exact–Mr. T. Harding Jones of the Concerned Alumni of Princeton lamented how “coeducation has ruined the mystique and the camaraderies that used to exist” on campus. Admitting girls to Princeton, he predicted, was “going to prove a very unfortunate thing.”
Landing at college a few years later, at the very moment the number of female undergraduates nationally reached parity with that of men–though my school was still 3-to-2 male … But a gender gap has reopened: If girls were once excluded because they somehow weren’t good enough, they now are rejected because they’re too good. Or at least they are so good, compared with boys, that admissions committees at some private colleges have problems managing a balanced freshman class. Roughly 58 percent of undergraduates nationally are female, and the girl-boy ratio probably will tip past 60-40 in a few years. The divide is even worse for black males, who are outnumbered on campus by black females 2 to 1.
