Anyone Think Being Female Boosts Chances of Admission at Any Top CS Schools

Applying to College
21

“1)In general, can being female, having good stats, and having a demonstrated interest in CS overcome ECs that would normally disqualify a kid at a super selective school?”

It could overcome as a lot of ECs (robotics, hackathons, olympiads etc) expected at super-selective schools are not typically welcoming to girls, that’s just the way it is. This was discussed really well, imo, in a women in CS thread on cc. So they could accept based on potential, talent than accomplishments.

2)Does anyone know of specific schools that are aggressively pursuing girls for CS and are more likely to make the kind of trade off I mentioned in question 1 above?

Yes, many of them are not on your list, but Stanford, Berkeley, CMU, MIT, Cal Tech are trying to fix the gender balance in CS. From the list, I think as others have mentioned, Georgia Tech, Cornell are trying to attract more girls for CS.

“I think almost all the top CS, Engineering schools are looking at ECs and everything else the same way, holistically.”

If holistic means the context of CS ECs being male dominated and unwelcoming, maybe hostile, and accounting for that, sure.

22

“…specific schools that are aggressively pursuing girls for CS?”
Some of the women’s colleges.

I wouldn’t count on getting tipped into Stanford, MIT, CMU, without the right mix of ECs.

We have to face the fact that many strong and determined young women won’t fall back on reasoning (excuses) that the opps are too male dominated. They’ll persist. That persistence is key, to begin with.

If you think CS is too male dominated, what’ll you do in college? Lean back there, too?

23

100% agree with this.

24

Let’s put it this way: it doesn’t and can’t hurt.

25
An imbalanced male/female ratio often indicates little preference by gender, rather than a preference being present. The natural ratio without preference is usually imbalanced. However, if there is a more balanced ratio in CS at a highly selective preference, then that balanced gender ratio is often is suggestive of an admissions preference. This gender preference has been well documented at several colleges.

For example, Carngie Mellon has a well balanced class with an approximately 50/50 gender ratio. However, the overall acceptance rate is not as well balanced – 13% for men and 24% for men. The school of computer science also has a reasonably well balanced gender ratio, unlike the vast majority of other computer science departments at highly selective colleges. CMU doesn’t break down admit rate by school, but if they did, I’d expect the difference in admit rate between genders to be far more extreme for the school of computer science than for the college as a whole.

In contrast, if you look at Stanford, they’ve been making a strong and well documented effort to increase female CS enrollment in recent years. They’ve made some major strides in increasing CS enrollment in recent years through a variety of changes, including several key changes at the intro course level, yet CS enrollment is still very imbalanced – 35% female among CS majors. Stanford achieves a nearly 50/50 gender ratio across all undergraduates, but they do not in specific departments like CS. CS and engineering have a far larger portion male students, while bio/pre-med and humanities have a far larger portion of female students. With this degree of gender imbalance, I don’t see a clear indication of gender preference by prospective major at Stanford, even though Stanford is trying to increase female CS enrollment.

In general, selective colleges where a large portion of students enroll in tech fields (MIT/Caltech/CMU/…) are more likely to give a preference to women, in order to achieve a better gender balance across the full college. A similar principle applies to selective colleges that manage to achieve a good gender balance across their engineering/CS sub-college.

26

Bottom line, will a top college give a preference to a good student who doesnt quite match what they look for, holistically?

She’s got robotics and Mu Alpha Theta (so much for the theory she’s edged out by by boys,) good for STEM. And a job. But maybe not the other usual peer activities, that breadth, a show of that willingness or interest, and no comm service shown. Preference for women would manifest as some tip for compelling applicants they’re sure of, in the first place.

Thing is, some act as if theres a dearth of strong females, that they’ll dig deeper into the pool. Can’t count on that. And in the last 5 years or so, female contenders have gotten stronger and more purposeful. And she’s in Westchester, many other competitive kids.

Needs either to add what she can or aim for the right list of matches. There will be matches, but that’s not just schools she likes, but schools that want what her record offers.

27

In short, being female does make it easier to get in at MIT/Caltech/CMU CS, but those schools/departments are still extremely difficult to enter even if you are female.
It also makes it easier to get in to GTech/UIUC/Harvey Mudd (not as selective as the above but still quite difficult to get in to even if female). RPI/WPI/Stevens/Rose-Hulman are easier still. The UIUC CS+X majors may be at that level.

BTW, it’s fine to aim for prestige, but what type of prestige? For instance, UIUC has a high overall admit rate and would garner you no “oohs” and “aahs” from the hoi polloi, but in the software world, UIUC CS is regarded as highly as GTech CS and Cal CS. Likewise, RPI (actually, many of those small tech institutes) are highly regarded in the engineering world even if they aren’t ranked that highly by USNews.

28

Thank you everyone for the great responses. I’m going to try to go back through and answer all the questions everyone asked, but I first wanted to answer the ones I remember off the top of my head.

Applying as a CS major is not a strategy for her. She genuinely likes CS. They make the kids take a full year Intro to Programming class before they can take AP Java at our high school. So she has two years so far and is taking a third course next year. It’s an independent projects type of class. I think they have them do some coding in a Functional language like Scala, but I’m not sure. I’m thinking of looking into a C++ course for her too. Some of the CS programs include a course in C++, which I agree with. That’s not a language you want to see for the first time under pressure.

As far as ECs go, she has the following:

Tutoring in Mu Alpha Theta at school
Tutoring a bunch of local kids outside of school
Robotics club
Part time job at a restaurant - 4 days per week. She has worked for past 2 years.
Helping with the behind the scenes work at the school plays and music concerts.

We’re working on getting her a programming project for the summer through some friends of my wife.
I’m also going to look into Summer camps, like someone mentioned, and maybe something like Girls Who Code, but it’s probably too late for that.

I think she’ll have some solid options at schools like Bucknell, Lehigh, and Richmond, especially if she applies ED. The super selective schools are not something she’s been thinking too much about. She’s much more worried about fit, and we have’t even seen most of them. But what I’m thinking is she could ED1 at one of the top CS schools(if she ends up liking one of them better than her current favorite, which I think is Bucknell) and then she could ED2 at Bucknell or whatever ends up being her favorite more realistic school.

Just a little more background on her:

A lot of people have mentioned the tech schools. I’m going to work on getting her to some of them, but I don’t think she’ll see them as a good fit. For a kid who’s into nerdy things, she’s very non-nerdy. She’s very outgoing and she wants to go to a school where the kids have a lot of fun. I think that’s why Vanderbilt and Notre Dame are high on her list. I’m sure there are all sorts of kids at the tech schools, but I think those schools probably lean a little more nerdy than the others. I would love them, but I think she would probably feel out of place.

Does anyone think a kid like this might actually have an advantage at any of the schools I mentioned up top, or do they all like their CS kids good and nerdy :slight_smile: I feel like she would definitely stand out on an interview, but I don’t know how much personality matters to these schools.

About the question regarding oohs and aahs… No, that’s not the type of prestige she’s looking for, if any. More the, “Oh, you went to top CS school X, we’d like to interview you. We’ve had good results with the kids who have come out of there.”

Any other feedback would be greatly appreciated. I’ll try to go back and look for questions I haven’t answered.

Thanks everyone.

29

@WalknOnEggShells I can only share regarding GT and Cornell. GT has been working on increasing female applicants overall for years. CS is probably one of the most gender imbalanced majors there are. Likely the imbalance in CS at GT is particularly acute.

Cornell’s gender imbalance is bad in CS, and partially made up for in the other engineering disciplines. They have a female engineering faculty member who has been focusing on this issue for a while. Unsure what that means in practice in admissions currently.

It is quite true that the total female pool of college applicants is stronger (and bigger) than the male. Colleges desire balance, yet difficult to achieve naturally. Each brand tends to attract one gender at least slightly more than the other. Yield rates can be vastly different based on gender. Elite colleges, with high score demands (and your daughter is completely within those limits anywhere), might need to accept a high proportion of females because of a low yield rate combined with low number of qualified applicants. And, by the way, balance is desired not only for the optics. It is a desirable characteristic because females often bring something to the CS discipline that males more often do not. The best software designer and network engineer I have ever worked with are both females. Some schools see those characteristics as more important than an applicant’s ECs when they were 16.

That being said, she should go for it wherever she wants to, assuming you all are comfortable for however the chips fall. Gender is unlikely to overcome anything else the school has an objective for in any year, though. The gender imbalance has been a problem for a long time; no one expects it to be solved overnight. Some have given up trying to solve it at all. Schools who had a blitz year and accepted females like crazy might correct one class, but unless that strategy is maintained, it falls back to its natural level the next year. And because the supply for females who want CS is so much lower, no elite school is going to risk its standing by really lowering standards for any length of time for any applicant segment. They’ll try to tweak things one year hoping that will attract more of the underrepresented group the next year, and that tends to not work.

Nursing (opposite problem) has been fighting this for 30 years. An RN credential is the highest paying non-bachelor’s degree there is in the US, by far. Usually that sort of characteristic attracts males, but the proportion of male nurses has inched up glacially. I don’t know whether it is nature or nurture, but teenagers select college majors very differently by gender.

I am sure she would bring some special things to any CS department. She just has to find a way to communicate what those are in a different way than listing ECs. You must be very proud!

30

Thanks @cypresspat , I am very proud of her. She works hard and she’s a sweet kid. It will be interesting. The good news is that she has already found a few schools she can see herself at, and they’re all very solid options that I think she has a decent shot at if she EDs.

She knows these elite schools are a total long shot. We weren’t even going to look at any of them until we realized that all of the schools she’s targeting have ED2. So we figured why not at least take a look at some of the more prestigious schools and if she likes one of them better, she can throw an app in. It will cost us $75. What the hell.

Thanks for the info on GT and Cornell. We’re going to give both of them a good look.

31

She should certainly apply to any and all schools that interest her. That she wants. Absolutely. Now is her opportunity to do so

Once she gets schools that she knows will take her and are affordable, preferably EA or rolling admissions nailed, she should then apply with wild abandon. She has the basic stats to be considered. Yes, being female will help most of the time, but not a huge boost. It’s a competitive major. But if she really has a school in mind, she can can an ED boost too, if she feels she’d be happy with that school. No harm in tryin, especially if she covers her safety based at the same time.

32

I forgot to respond to the issue of being intimidated by boys. This girl is sweet but she’s fierce. I can’t see her being intimidated by “Boys Who Code”. More likely the other way around. If they try to exclude her, they might regret it :slight_smile:

33

Yes the STEM schools are more on the nerdy side, but plenty of non-nerds there too. My daughter is very non-nerdy (surfer clothing, country music, likes baking and cooking, traveling). She spent most of her free time on the beach. Most of her friends were athletes and not all were engineers even though it was a STEM school (also has a big psychology major). I know other engineers whose friends are mostly in the band, or into horses, or like hunting.

She shouldn’t be afraid of looking at STEM schools. If she wants an advantage in admissions, that’s where she’s more likely to find one.

34

According to the news story at https://cis.cornell.edu/55-percent-incoming-eng-students-interested-computer-science-are-women, 55% of incoming CS students at Cornell’s College of Engineering are women. The 55% women in CS balances out the <50% women in some other engineering school fields, to make an overall exactly 50/50 gender balance in Cornell’s College of Engineering. This 50/50 gender balance is a huge change from previous years. For example, a decade ago, it was 70/30 gender balance. 2 decades ago, it was 80/20.

In order to achieve this 50/50 gender balance, the acceptance rate for Cornell’s College of Engineering is very different for men and women – 18% admit rate for women vs 6% for men, in the most recent available year, which is actually less extreme of a difference than other recent years. As such, I think it’s likely that Cornell Engineering has a gender preference, including in CS if applied via the College of Engineering, rather than A&S. Of course this does not mean they are accepting unqualified students who to do not meet the rest of the holistic criteria Cornell values.

35

I have no experience with the CS department at Notre Dame but I do know they try to put those kids together in the same dorm for support. My rising sophomore there is a science major and while housing is supposed to be random, I think they do put many of the science women together. So my non-nerdy science kid has lots of non-nerdy friends in science there for support.

ETA: there is nothing wrong with being nerdy!

36

“there is nothing wrong with being nerdy!”

I’m with you. I love nerds. I’m half a nerd myself, on my father’s side :smile:

My daughter likes them, too. She’s friends with some of the nerdy kids. She just doesn’t want them in charge of social planning, which isn’t crazy :smiley:

37

I’d really love to see more high school CS girls encouraging middle schoolers with activities, summer programs and the like.

38

“I think she’ll have some solid options at schools like Bucknell, Lehigh, and Richmond, especially if she applies ED.”

I’m not sure that’s the right way to go, if you have a clear first choice among the initial list you mentioned - Cornell, Northwestern, ND, Vanderbilt, ED there and EA to Georgia Tech.

39

Is @sincererLove point out, top schools will be looking for demonstrated interest outside of class. If it looks like a strategy, they will not be impressed.

Has she taken AP Calc BC or AP Physics? Those will enhance the legitimacy of her application. Has she done anything CS related in the summer? That will enhance application legitimacy too.

Schools know they will not find many girls with the level of CS experience the boys often have, so they will often look for strong students who are very strong students with very high rigor and some level of demonstrated interest. Those girls have all of the tools to catch up with the boys quickly, and they do.

40

@Much2learn, we’re working on something for the summer, but it’s surprising to me that 3 classes in something(2 at the college level) isn’t enough to show interest. Would a kid who isn’t interested in Computer Science really take 3 classes in it? AP CS is no joke. And the AP test is pretty rough. I get it, I’m not saying I don’t believe everyone. It’s just kind of crazy.

She’s taking Calc BC and the first AP Physics(non-Calc based) next year(Senior year). She’s also in Robotics Club. Maybe it’s just our school, but I don’t hear about a lot of boys that she needs to catch up with. There was one boy in Robotics Club who sounded like he’d been programming for years, but other than that, I don’t get the feeling she has a lot of boys she’s chasing. It’s possible I just don’t know about them, because they aren’t any of the boys she’s friends with. We have a pretty good CS curriculum at our school too.

She definitely needs something for the summer though. That’s my top priority right now. Thanks for the info. Sorry if I sound combative. It’s just crazy what these kids have to do these days to get into these schools. I honestly don’t think it’s worth it, but she wants to have a shot at some of these schools so I guess it is.