Why are there more boys than girls at Oxbridge?

solihp

It is worth pointing out at that of Oxbridge applicants, girls have higher grades on average, both at GCSE and A level.

Do you know the stats for successful applicants (or ones who were at least pooled)? I think this would be a better group to look at. From my school there were several unrealistic applicants (or at least applicants considered by me to be unrealistic) who would skew the figures for applicants somewhat. If the successful girls had higher grades on average than the successful boys, it might be cause to ask some questions (even if they're just questions like "do the admissions tutors have any better indicators of ability than A level grades?" which for my subject, Maths, they usually do), but if it's just that female applicants on average (presumably the arithmetic mean, which is prone to being misleading) I don't think you can leap to any conclusions (not that you did).

I need to get out of this brackets habit... And now I can't get rid of the idea of clothing made out of parts of shelves...

Edit: Cleaned up the formatting.

Reply 81

GregoryJL

Hmm.. a few percentage difference... What percentage of Oxbridge students are Compscis, again?

Reply 82

Robob

17

GregoryJL

Hmm.. a few percentage difference... What percentage of Oxbridge students are Compscis, again?

Well in almost 2 years I've seen 3, and they were all guys.

Reply 83

Derek_the_Sheep

8

It probably has something to do with subject choice. More males than females tend to apply for science courses, and these are a bit "easier" to get in for. (At Oxford, about 2-3 applicants per offer in sciences as opposed to 3-4-ish in arts & humanities.) So the average success rate of female applicants will be a bit lower, even though/if the contest in each subject is unbiased as to sex.

DtS

Reply 84

Drogue

19

Otter123

Why on EARTH are there more boys than girls at Oxbridge?

In their latest prospectus (you can find it on the web) it states:

Applicants: Boys Girls
50.6% 49.4%

So the statistics should be the same for the percentage of boys and girls admitted. But no -

Successful applicants: Boys = 53%
Girls = 47%

Why is this, when girls' A-Level results are OVERALL better? If A-levels play a large part (which they should) then we would be seeing about 60% girls and 40% boys at Oxbridge based on academic achievments.

I've been told that it's because the people at the top of Oxbridge are conservative stuffy old men who'd prefer their public school boys to get in. From the stats it seems that girls are discrimiated against.

Some say that perhaps boys are more confident in the interview and therefore get more places than girls. But this is hardly true.

What do people think?

Because A levels don't play as large a part. Generally, a tutor's aim is to let in the people who will get the best grades in their degree. Since there's a well-documented finals gap, that would suggest boys with the same A levels tend to do better, in terms of finals mark, than girls. Hence, a tutor has an incentives to let in more boys than girls. I don't think this particularly happens, but that's one explanation.

I think if there is an explanation, it's a little deeper. Why do boys tend to do better in finals? The general argument I've heard is that guys are more willing to take a view and argue it, whereas girls, at least in essay subjects, tend to sit on the fence more. Generally the latter comes of better in essay subjects. Now, it may be that in interviews, the same is true - boys take a view and argue it, whereas girls sit on the fence. It could well be that verbally, taking a view and arguing it also seems, at the time, more impressive, and thus boys get in more.

Again I've no idea if this is true. However one counter would be that girls outnumber boys in essay subjects.

The most plausible reason stems from just that - guys go more for sciences more, which tend to have fewer applicants per place, whereas girls go for arts subjects more. Hypothetically, imagine you have two subjects, art and science, and that all girls apply for art, and all boys for science. If you happen to have more places for science, then more boys will get in. Similarly, but to a lesser extent, if 2/3 of girls apply for arts and 2/3 of boys for science, you'll get more boys than girls.

If you actually look at application and acceptance ratios for boys and girls for specific subjects, I'd bet you'd find them virtually identical. However girls apply for more oversubscribed courses.

Reply 85

Donald Duck

15

Otter123

Why on EARTH are there more boys than girls at Oxbridge?

In their latest prospectus (you can find it on the web) it states:

Applicants: Boys Girls
50.6% 49.4%

So the statistics should be the same for the percentage of boys and girls admitted. But no -

Successful applicants: Boys = 53%
Girls = 47%

Why is this, when girls' A-Level results are OVERALL better? If A-levels play a large part (which they should) then we would be seeing about 60% girls and 40% boys at Oxbridge based on academic achievments.

I've been told that it's because the people at the top of Oxbridge are conservative stuffy old men who'd prefer their public school boys to get in. From the stats it seems that girls are discrimiated against.

Some say that perhaps boys are more confident in the interview and therefore get more places than girls. But this is hardly true.

What do people think?

1st of all, the deviation of the middle is hardly surprising. I mean, its not in any terms a significant difference.

Second of all, this is beyond A levels. Only the best applicants get in, which is a different (smaller) group than everyone who can get AAA at A levels.

Btw, they do not prefer public school boys, the thing is that they perform better than average in the interviews and on their personal statement, and the interviewers want the people who perform best on those, regardless of their backgrounds.

Why are there more boys than girls at Oxbridge?

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