DY – we’re not looking at 100 boys and 100 girls. We’re looking at one year’s worth of boys at 23 going out with five years’ worth of (younger) girls. I’m all for the new movement to start boys in the parshah at 21. That will cut down the number of ‘extra” girls by almost half.
Starting boys earlier may also avoid some going off the derech, too. And no, every boy doesn’t need to learn a year or more in EY, any more than every girl needs to go to seminary in EY for a year. Sending a young person who’s never been away from home to a different continent where they know few if any adults is a good prescription for trouble. Just because everybody else is doing it doesn’t mean it’s sensible. Keeping up with “yenem” isn’t a good criterion for our behavior.