I don't think it's purely an optics thing. College is a community not just school. Do you want all your social groups, living area, etc. to be 75+% male as a college student?
Given the option as an 18-yo male I’d probably opt for 5% male, but that’s strictly a matter of personal preference, and not a basis for admissions.
I endured 75+% male and didn’t particularly enjoy it, but that’s not why I attended my similarly-sized engineering college. I went for the education and rigor.
Caltech is and has always been about hardcore study. It’s not a cotillion. At least it didn’t used to be.
You don't need to sacrifice the rigor to have a more balanced community, at least not at the total size Caltech is. There's a large component of college admissions these days that is somewhat arbitrary. High school resumes (at least the type that applies to these schools) have become absolutely cracked. Like it used to mean something to have a research internship, now it's weird not to.
I think you do need to sacrifice some rigor to reach a level of perfect balance, or at least sacrifice the appearance of rigor. So let's agree to differ on that one.
I think we would agree about most aspects of college admissions being flawed.
Flawed is probably technically correct. But you're basically optimizing for a good blend of student body and I think admission committees don't get things "right" but who knows what that even means? They probably mostly do well enough given there are lots of opinions on what the targets should be.
It's pretty clear to me that you don't want to just admit the highest SAT scores, the best athletes, or the best musicians (unless maybe you're Juilliard).
Whether you like it or not, schools are communities. They have a shared identity and set of experiences that people outside the school don't have. Whether this should be the case or not is a separate matter, but it is the reality of today (and for pretty much all schools since they first started).
Starting anything with “whether you like it or not” is a sure sign you’re not arguing to learn or teach but arguing to win (win what? the internet?)
Schools are not communities, they have communities within them, but they are more than just communities.
Your high school homecoming court also has a shared identity and a set of experiences that people outside the court don’t have. How is either important?
A lot of people paid $75 to become one of those data points, and the majority of them didn’t pick Caltech because of the social opportunities (because Caltech is not anywhere near the top of that list unless you’re talking social opportunities strictly for people north of 180 I.Q.).
In Caltech we have an exclusive and highly desirable learning institution with a finite and insufficient number of seats. Rigor or optics, you can’t have both. If you’re choosing optics, own it and don’t be ashamed of it.
Nah, sorry you had a shit college experience, but college is the place I made most of my close, lifelong friends. And had an awesome time. While also learning, they're not mutually exclusive. It's a shared experience you can't replicate just going to the bar.
It's not like they're taking women that can't hack the coursework. They could replace the entire incoming class with select people amongst the rejected and the class would still be successful. College admissions is partly a crap shoot. If they tilt the crap shoot part in a way that makes the community better, who cares?
In the case of a large university in smaller/to medium towns, there frequently won't be much of a change in ratio unless you're really willing to travel. It's the same community feeding all the places within walking distance or a short drive.
Relatedly, a selective school means that the peers are likely to be similar. Those connections can last a life time, and socialization can greatly broaden your knowledge base and lead to a potentially more interesting skill set and/or a more complex trade.
