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Women outnumber men, outpace men in applications, and are admitted at higher rates, but at some schools, the opposite is quietly true

At the roughly 106 coed selective colleges in the United States, women now make up 54.5 percent of undergraduate enrollment. A decade ago, the figure was 52.3 percent. The shift amounts to about two percentage points, a seemingly modest number that, applied across hundreds of thousands of students, represents one of the most significant demographic changes in elite higher education.

The trend is not slowing. Women submit more applications than men (53.7 percent of the total in 2024), their application volume has grown faster (up 67 percent since 2015, versus 60 percent for men), and they are admitted at slightly higher rates on average (21.9 percent versus 19.4 percent). At the broadest level, the admissions pipeline favors women at every stage.

But beneath that headline lies a more complicated reality. At a significant number of selective schools—especially those where women already outnumber men, male applicants are quietly admitted at higher rates than female applicants. And at STEM-heavy institutions, the reverse is true: women receive a substantial admissions advantage. The gender gap in college admissions is not one story. It is two, running in opposite directions, driven by the same underlying force: the desire to maintain something resembling gender balance in an applicant pool that is increasingly unbalanced.

The Big Picture: A Steady Drift

The numbers trace a clear, decade-long arc. In 2015, women made up 52.3 percent of undergraduates at selective coed schools. By 2024, that had risen to 54.5 percent. The shift accelerated after 2019, gaining more ground in the five post-pandemic years than in the previous five.

Meanwhile, the gap in acceptance rates has quietly widened. In 2015, women were admitted at a rate of 28.4 percent versus 27.1 percent for men, a difference of 1.3 percentage points. By 2024, the gap had nearly doubled to 2.5 points (21.9 percent for women versus 19.4 percent for men). Women are not only applying in greater numbers; they are being admitted at proportionally higher rates.

Why? The simplest explanation is that the female applicant pool at selective schools is, on average, academically stronger than the male pool. Women earn higher GPAs in high school, are more likely to take AP courses, and are more likely to have leadership positions in extracurriculars. In a holistic admissions process that weighs these factors heavily, women benefit, not from preferential treatment, but from presenting stronger applications in aggregate.

The Two-Way Advantage: Who Benefits Where

The aggregate acceptance rate gap conceals a striking split. At individual schools, the direction of the gender gap depends almost entirely on one factor: the school’s existing gender ratio and what it is trying to achieve.

At STEM-heavy schools, women get a substantial edge. Georgia Tech admitted women at a 19.1 percent rate versus 11.6 percent for men in 2024, a 7.5-point advantage. Harvey Mudd: 21.1 percent for women versus 8.6 percent for men. Carnegie Mellon: 14.7 versus 9.8. Caltech: 4.3 versus 1.8. MIT: 6.8 versus 3.5. These schools are actively working to increase female representation in engineering and the sciences, and their admissions rates reflect that priority. At Georgia Tech, which is still just 40 percent female, the effort is particularly visible.

At women-heavy schools, men get the edge. Boston College admitted men at 20.1 percent versus women at 13.9 percent, a 6.2-point gap favoring men. The University of Miami: 22.5 versus 16.5. William & Mary: 37.4 versus 32.1. Brown University, despite its progressive reputation, admitted men at 7.0 percent versus women at 4.4 percent. These schools are already majority-female (52 to 59 percent women) and appear to be using admissions to prevent the ratio from tilting further.

Neither pattern is explicitly acknowledged in most schools’ admissions materials. But the data is unambiguous. Schools are managing their gender ratios through differential admissions rates, either to boost female representation in male-dominated fields or to prevent male students from becoming too scarce.

The Landscape: Where Women Currently Stand

Of the 106 coed selective schools in our dataset, only six have undergraduate populations that are less than 48 percent female. All six are either STEM-focused (Georgia Tech at 40 percent, Caltech at 45 percent, Babson at 44 percent) or have other distinctive characteristics. By contrast, 40 schools are more than 55 percent female, and a significant cluster, including Vassar (62 percent), George Washington (64 percent), and Emerson (66 percent), are approaching or exceeding a two-to-one female-to-male ratio.

The median coed selective school is now 54 percent female. The mean is 54.5 percent. Nearly three-quarters of all selective coed schools have student bodies that are more than 52 percent female. Gender parity, in the strict numerical sense, has become the exception rather than the rule.

The shift is even more pronounced at some traditionally male-leaning institutions. Caltech moved from 39 percent women to 45 percent in a decade. Tufts went from 50 percent to 56. UC San Diego from 48 percent to 55. These gains reflect both changing applicant demographics and deliberate institutional efforts to expand access for women, particularly in STEM.

What’s Driving the Gap

Women apply to more schools. The Common App era has disproportionately increased the number of applications from women, who tend to build longer school lists and apply to more reach schools. Women’s total applications to selective schools grew 67 percent between 2015 and 2024, compared to 60 percent for men. This application advantage compounds into an enrollment advantage: more applications mean more acceptances, which means more women choosing among multiple offers.

The college-going gap starts before applications. The gender gap in higher education is not limited to selective schools. Nationally, women now earn about 58 percent of all bachelor’s degrees. The selective-college gap of 55/45 is actually narrower than the national average, suggesting that elite schools are partially counteracting the broader trend, likely through the very gender-balancing admissions practices visible in the data.

Men yield at slightly higher rates. Men who are admitted to selective schools enroll at a rate of about 40 percent, versus 38 percent for women. This small yield gap (which has held relatively steady over the decade) means that even when schools admit similar numbers of men and women, more men tend to show up. But the yield advantage is not nearly large enough to offset the application and admission advantages held by women.

What This Means for Families

If your son is applying to a majority-female school, he may have a slight admissions advantage. This is not a guarantee, and schools do not publicly acknowledge gender-based admissions preferences. But the data strongly suggests that at schools where women already constitute 55 percent or more of the student body, male applicants face modestly better odds. Schools like Boston College, Villanova, Vassar, and William & Mary show consistent patterns of higher male acceptance rates. This is worth knowing, not to game the system, but to accurately calibrate expectations.

If your daughter is applying to a STEM school, the admissions advantage is real and substantial. At Harvey Mudd, women were admitted at nearly 2.5 times the rate of men. At Georgia Tech, the ratio was roughly 1.6 to 1. These are not subtle differences. If your daughter is interested in engineering, computer science, or the physical sciences, STEM-focused selective schools are actively recruiting her, and the admissions data confirms it.

The overall acceptance rate for women is slightly higher, but the competition is fierce everywhere. A 2.5-percentage-point gender gap in acceptance rates is real, but it should not be overstated. The average acceptance rate for women at selective schools in 2024 was 21.9 percent, still a nearly four-in-five chance of rejection. The gender gap is a marginal advantage, not a free pass. Strong academics, compelling extracurriculars, and well-crafted applications remain far more important than gender in any individual admissions decision.

Don’t overlook the campus experience implications. A school that is 60 or 62 percent female is a different social environment than one that is 50/50. Some students prefer a more balanced ratio; others are indifferent. But the gender composition of a campus shapes everything from dating culture to club dynamics to the balance of perspectives in the classroom. It is worth considering as you evaluate fit, not just admissions odds.

An Imbalance Looking for a Policy

The widening gender gap is one of higher education’s most uncomfortable conversations. Unlike race-conscious admissions, which was the subject of a Supreme Court case and years of intense public debate, gender-conscious admissions operates largely in the shadows. Few schools discuss it openly. No federal regulations explicitly prohibit it. And the data, as we have shown, makes clear that it is happening, in both directions, for different reasons, at schools across the selectivity spectrum.

For now, the practical reality is this: women are increasingly dominant in the applicant pool at selective colleges, and schools are using admissions to manage the consequences. Whether this produces a more balanced campus or merely delays a reckoning with deeper questions about why young men are disengaging from higher education is a debate that has barely begun. What the data can tell you, as a parent, is where the advantages lie—and how to factor them into your family’s strategy.

Methodology: This analysis draws on IPEDS institutional data (2015–2024) for approximately 106 coed selective colleges (single-sex institutions and military academies excluded). Gender-specific acceptance rates are calculated from IPEDS admissions data (applicants and admissions by gender). Enrollment percentages use IPEDS undergraduate enrollment data. Application growth is calculated from total male and female applicant counts across all institutions.