Campuses Nationwide Are Dominated By Women

Out of the 4,008 full and part-time undergraduates students at Fairfield, 60 percent are female and only 40 percent are male.

Universities across the country are experiencing the same trend: a larger percentage of women in college.

Currently, Fairfield’s freshman class has 544 female and 369 male students.

The class of 2007 has a 56 :44 ratio of women to men, while the class of 2008 has a ratio of 54:46. The class of 2009 and 2010 both have a ratio of 60:40, as the classes grow larger, so does the percentage of women to men.

Director of Admissions Karen Pellegrino said that the applicant pool will decrease in the next few years and so will the ratio difference. The class of 2010 has the most balanced ratio yet.

Other universities comparable to Fairfield have similar gender ratios. “It seems that the engineering school and the business school would have more men than women and the school of arts and sciences as well as the school of nursing would have more women,” said Francesca Genovesi ’10.

Timothy Snyder, the dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, said that while there are more women in the arts, this is not representative of all the schools on campus.

“The difference in proportions in gender in the College of Arts and Sciences is more pronounced than it is at the University, overall,” said Snyder.

The admissions department continues to work on the unbalanced ratio in hopes that it will become more equal in coming years, according to Alison Hildenbrand of the undergraduate admissions department.

“The School of Business does seem to attract more men than women, and the school of nursing does tend to enroll more women than men, however there are still a significant number of women in the business school and men in the school of nursing,” said Alison Hildenbrand of the undergraduate admissions department.

Many students however, don’t seem to notice the gender ratio.

“I don’t notice it when I’m eating in Barone or even when I’m sitting in class. It’s not as apparent as you’d think it would be with such a high ratio,” said Aimee Schumaker ’10.