A male student in Norway took advantage of the nation’s lenient gender self-identification laws to gain admission to the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). The student said changing his gender for the purposes of gaining extra admission points was “about as easy as switching mobile plans.”
According to their website, NTNU has a “development plan for gender equality and diversity” in which they state that “…there is gender imbalance in many disciplines and women are still under-represented in top-level academic positions.”
To combat over-representation of one sex in several programs, the University has adopted a unique policy to award those who apply as “female” extra points towards admission in instances where the program has an extreme gender imbalance. The policy does not apply in programs where there is no gender imbalance.
Authorities approved the policy and the points system was introduced before this year’s admission.
According to Finansavisen, an unnamed male student took advantage of the policy after failing to meet merit-based standards. Seeking to gain extra admission points, the student changed his gender marker, allowing him to collect just enough points to be admitted into the Industrial Economics and Technology Management (Indøk) program. The program had a bonus two “gender points” for “female” applicants.
Speaking to Finansavisen, the male student said that changing his gender marker for the purposes of gaining admission was “about as easy” as changing his phone plan.
“It took approximately 7 weeks for the gender change to be completed,” the student said, also stating that other male students have also “changed their legal gender” to secure their own spots in the University.
Despite the revelation, NTNU’s Faculty of Economics Dean Monica Rolfsen spoke to Khrono and said she had no intention of following up on the matter. Rolfsen maintained that the gender change was legitimate, and that the school has no place to intervene.
“What kind of gender the student has and whether a student changes gender, and why, we really have nothing to do with that. It is a private matter,” she explained.
The school originally adopted the policy of awarding female applicants extra “gender points” to make up for the high proportion of male students.
But this year, out of the 252 students admitted to Industrial Economics and Technology Management at NTNU this year, 170 claimed to be women.
Rolfsen also says that the proportion of women has reached 40% of the school’s overall population and the “gender points” system will be reevaluated in the fall.
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