Q:

LaTeX table with combined columns - labels split

I'm trying to make a table in LaTeX with the following:
\begin{tabular}{ |c|c|c||c|c|c| }
         & \multicolumn{2}{c}Liberal Arts &
         & \multicolumn{2}{c}Engineering \\
         & women & men & & women & men \\
  \hline
  accept & 96 &  ? &  accept & ?   & 386 \\
  \hline
  reject & ?   & 45 & reject & 12 & ?    \\
  \hline
\end{tabular}

But the combined column labels end up getting an extra space after their first character. 

How do I prevent the extra space? 

A:

Your syntax is wrong, it should be \multicolumn{2}{c||}{Liberal Arts}.  Without the {} around the argument, latex will only take the first character as argument of \multicolumn
\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}

\begin{tabular}{ |c|c|c||c|c|c| }
         & \multicolumn{2}{c||}{Liberal Arts} &
         & \multicolumn{2}{c|}{Engineering} \\
         & women & men & & women & men \\
  \hline
  accept & 96 &  ? &  accept & ?   & 386 \\
  \hline
  reject & ?   & 45 & reject & 12 & ?    \\
  \hline
\end{tabular}

\end{document}

