It's a different sample though. People that do Harvard and MIT moocs are usually people that want to learn the subject and are self motivating whereas school is forced upon everyone. Willing or unwilling.

Basically your post confirms the theory of the person above. That grades aren't measuring mastery of knowledge but the skill to obey arbitrary rules.

> 311,534 male students (73.3%) and

> 113,571 female students (26.7%).

> The fact that it’s not even close to 50:50 is surprising.

It didn't surprise me, I went there & searched for it. How can it be surprising (you see these ppl all the time on campus!). And it shows that there are ~3 times more men at Harvard than woman.

So thank YOU so much for nearing to a problem: Girls do better early on (cf. orig. article) & men later in live (cf. your analysis)

Why did you screw that? Political correctness? You are dishonest (you'd have my downvote).

An important aspect: We need to make sure to not loose males [which would do fine later] during early years.

...the article is about online courses.

It doesn't surprise me that there would be a different result at the high school level and the college level. Most people are more invested in their education when they enter college, especially at elite schools like Harvard and MIT.