“I think the guys here at BYU-Hawaii got it all wrong. They all talk as if they can never find girls
who like them. This is every guy’s worry. But they shouldn’t be worried. All the girls like them.
Don’t forget where we are at – this is BYU-Hawaii! We have a ratio of seven girls to one guy.
There is not a guy on campus who couldn’t find a girlfriend if he really wanted because the girls
just don’t have that many other options. There are so many girls here that all the guys need to
do to find one they will be happy with is have the confidence to ask them out. It is all about the
numbers.”
I have heard arguments similar to this one many times before. Some girls worry that the university does not have enough men to choose from; others vent their frustration with a perceived need to compete with so many other women on campus to get a guy’s attention. Though the number thrown out to describe the school’s gender imbalance is never the same (I’ve heard everything from 2:1 to 7:1), everyone seems to agree that the number of girls on campus swamps the men available.
Are things really this bad?
This is a gender imbalance, but it is not an extreme one. Indeed, the ratio of men to women at BYU-Hawaii is equal to or smaller than the ratio of men to women in other Mormon communities [3].
Do you have questions about how the university really works? Wondering if the latest rumor on campus is true? Send us an e-mail or leave a comment with your question and our Mythbusting team will be glad to investigate!
Notes:
[1] BYU-Hawaii, “Quick Facts,” byuh.edu: Institutional Research, http://ir.byuh.edu/quickfacts (accessed 24 July 2014).
[2] The total number of degree-seeking students is 2,512. See BYU-Hawaii, “Quick Facts: Winter 2014,” byuh.edu, http://ir.byuh.edu/sites/ir.byuh.edu/files/BYUHQuickFacts_Winter14%20%284%
29.pdf (accessed 24 Jul 2014).
[3] Rick Philips and Ryan Cragun, Mormons in the United States 1998-2008:Socio-demographic Trends and Regional Differences, (Hartford, CT: Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society & Culture, 2009). http://commons.trincoll.edu/aris/files/2011/12/Mormons2008.pdf (accessed 24 July 2014).