A federal civil rights agency investigating possible gender discrimination in college admissions will subpoena data from more than a dozen mid-Atlantic universities -- including several Maryland schools, such as Goucher College, University of Maryland Eastern Shore and Loyola University -- officials said Thursday.

The probe by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is focusing on whether some colleges favor men by admitting them at higher rates than women, or by offering them more generous aid packages.

Commission members voted Wednesday to authorize subpoenas for 19 universities within a 100-mile radius of where the commission meets in Washington -- the geographical extent of their subpoena authority.

The schools represent a mixture of sizes and include public, private, religious, secular, historically black and moderately selective to highly selective institutions. There are six in Maryland, five in Pennsylvania, three in Washington, two each in Virginia and Delaware, and one in West Virginia.