College admission for males and females in Business and Law

A naive examination suggests that females have a lower probability of being admitted — is there discrimination?

However the degree programme (MBA or Law) is a lurking variable.

Click Slice. The probability of admission is higher for the females in each programme.

A naive examination suggests that females have a lower probability of being admitted — is there discrimination?

However click Slice and drag the slider. Within any degree programme, the proportion of females getting admission is higher than that of males.

The direction of the marginal relationship was caused by a lurking variable, Degree programme.

The Law programme had much lower admission rates but attracted more female applicants than males.

The females were less likely to get admission because they tended to apply to a program with low admission rates.


The data describes admission rates of male and female students into the Business and Law Schools of a university.