Why men warrant a break on college admissions

By Richard Whitmire

It is hard to imagine that the controversies over how colleges pick their freshmen classes — the admissions "black boxes" that all too often seem to prefer someone else's child — could get any hotter. But they are.

Topping the list of gripes are "legacy" admissions — the students who get an extra boost because their daddy or granddaddy graduated from that college (and kicked more than a few bucks into the college coffers).

After that comes pick your least favorite sport. If you don't like the idea of colleges being used as training camps for professional football, you have to wonder why some linebacker with a checkered high school academic career gets the nod over your less athletic child. Don't think minorities warrant an extra boost? Join the corps of conservative legal advocacy groups who try to maneuver just the right case before just the right Supreme Court. And let's not forget the annoying habit many colleges have of admitting at least one student from each state. I don't know whether to be amused or outraged by all the admissions preferences lavished on North Dakotans.

A new wrinkle

Now we have a new reason to be upset at the admissions preferences. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights recently announced it would investigate whether women have to meet higher admissions standards at many colleges, especially small private liberal arts colleges that have a hard time attracting men.

The question is not whether the admissions bias is happening. (It is.) Rather, it's whether colleges should be pressured to give it up. Pressure is all the commission can apply. It has no legal powers. But it's not hard to imagine tremendous pressure arising from high school girls about to learn they face a higher admissions bar.

Despite that, colleges have good reasons to hold firm. Picking a freshman class is what defines a college. Some colleges do that by assessing their applicants' religious fervor, others their artistic talents. There's a lot of diversity out there. If colleges think they need a football program to keep donors and students happy, we should not judge harshly. Even the legacy admissions are there for a reason, to keep traditions alive.

Whither the men?

But men? "No one has a persuasive explanation for what's going on with men," said Richard Ekman, president of the Council of Independent Colleges, which represents many of the small private colleges accused of discriminating against women. "It just turns out there are more females than males applying. It's a puzzle where the boys are."

The source of the "boy troubles" is a mystery for experts to sort out. What's relevant to these colleges is the many reasons they have for wanting to keep gender imbalances in check. The most important: It's what both male and female students want.

"For private colleges, admission has never been about a strict meritocracy, but about building a community," explains Robert Massa, a vice president at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania. "That is why a college in the east may admit a student from Wyoming over a slightly 'better' candidate from New York. It's why colleges admit good but less competitive student athletes or talented musicians. It is why colleges admit students underrepresented in college. Men — white or black or Latino — are underrepresented in college."

Removing one leg of those preferences, such as men, would ratchet up pressure to remove the rest, which would threaten the diversity that defines our world-class higher education system.

As for guys from North Dakota now applying to college ... the world is your oyster.

Richard Whitmire, a former USA TODAY editorial writer, is author of the upcoming book Why Boys Fail (whyboysfail.com).