These days, one often comes across op-eds opining the difficulty white male applicants face in the elite college admissions game. But is this true? Are white men actually underrepresented at highly selective universities? The answer is a resounding no!

The Gender Breakdown at Top National Universities

College / University	2026 US News Rank (“Best National Universities”)	Number of Full-time Male Students	Number of Full-time Female Students	Number of Full-Time Gender Nonconforming Students
Princeton University	#1	2,889	2,936	N/A
Massachusetts Institute of Technology	#2	2,320	2,169	N/A
Harvard University	#3	3,271	3,762	N/A
Stanford University	#4	3,572	3,717	N/A
Yale University	#4	3,239	3,318	76
University of Chicago	#6	4,081	3,432	N/A
Duke University	#7	3039	3435	2
Johns Hopkins University	#7	2,581	3,067	31
Northwestern University	#7	4,084	4,800	30
University of Pennsylvania	#7	4,573	5,401	N/A
California Institute of Technology	#11	541	446	N/A
Cornell University	#12	7,414	8,678	13
Brown University	#13	3,547	3,621	3
Dartmouth College	#13	2,365	2,168	N/A
Columbia University	#15	4,212	4,132	145
University of California, Berkeley	#15	14,110	17,801	N/A
Rice University	#17	2,352	2,331	1
University of California, Los Angeles	#17	13,232	19,489	319
Vanderbilt University	#17	3,444	3,866	0
Carnegie Mellon University	#20	3,890	3,350	237
University of Michigan – Ann Arbor	#20	15,461	18,663	N/A
University of Notre Dame	#20	4,628	4,294	N/A
Washington University in St. Louis	#20	3,508	4,025	1
Emory University	#24	3,169	4,074	N/A
Georgetown University	#24	2,971	4,365	36

Are Men Discriminated Against in College Admissions?

You might be looking at this data and thinking, “See, I knew that there were more women at elite universities than men! This proves that men are being discriminated against!” But no so fast. Women apply to elite universities at higher rates than men, and as such men are considered to be rarer, more highly valued applicants. For example, The Brown Daily Herald recently reported that “Brown has the largest male-to-female acceptance rate gap of any Ivy, touting a 7% male acceptance rate in comparison to the female 4.4%” In other words, male applicants were 46% more likely to get into Brown than female applicants!

Girls consistently outperform boys academically at all grade levels. It follows that this gender disparity would be reflected in elite college applicant pools. Admissions officers try to correct this difference by adhering as closely to a 50-50 gender ratio as possible. Even though there are currently more women at elite colleges than men, the imbalance is far closer to gender parity than the applicant pools would indicate.

How White Applicants are Supported by Elite Admissions Practices

But how does race figure into these admissions dynamics? The truth is that admissions officers do highly value applicants of color because they have a responsibility to curate diverse cohorts of students. However, a multitude of outdated practices outweigh the effect of these diversity efforts, including the legacy admission boost, athletic recruitment, and the development case admission boost. In all three of these cases, overwhelmingly white pools of applicants are expedited through the admissions process. A select number of white applicants are accepted at much higher rates than their less privileged counterparts. It might not be intentional, but the de facto application of these policies give wealthy white applicants a leg up in the admissions process.

When one considers that Affirmative Action was removed from the toolkit of college admissions officers last year (even though colleges get around the Supreme Court ruling with essays through the Roberts loophole), what leg do these people arguing the white male is at a disadvantage really have to stand on? It’s simply not true! The average white male is far more likely to be admitted to a highly selective school than the average non-white female. If this ever changes, Ivy Coach will be the first to call out elite universities for their discrimination, as we have always done. Until then, we will continue to decry practices that allow fewer members of deserving groups to reap the benefits of an elite education.