That's the same approach Caltech took when it first started admitting women in 1970. Things get socially very awkward and uncomfortable for everybody when you have a school where almost all students live on campus and socialize primarily with fellow students, and the male/female distribution is severely unbalanced, and so getting more women was a priority.
Gender was not considered when deciding on an applicant, but they made quite an effort to get more qualified women to apply, and to get those who did and were offered admission to choose Caltech.
This isn't the fastest way to balance the population (when I was there, 10 years later, they were only up to 15-20% women, and are up to around 40% now), but it allowed them to keep their high standards.
Gender was not considered when deciding on an applicant, but they made quite an effort to get more qualified women to apply, and to get those who did and were offered admission to choose Caltech.
This isn't the fastest way to balance the population (when I was there, 10 years later, they were only up to 15-20% women, and are up to around 40% now), but it allowed them to keep their high standards.