@twoinanddone, when you say STEM schools, do you mean just RPI, WPI, Stevens, Rose Hulman and Harvey Mudd, or does that include Carnegie Mellon and MIT. Carnegie Mellon and MIT aren’t even on her list because she figured they’d be even more ridiculously hard to get into.
Lol, no, just taking classes is not enough for a tippy top or top. You’ve got to realize the competition (and it will vary at her final targets.) Robotics and Mu are good. Now the issue is, what else, besides the job? And, what besides two stem activities, what non-stem?
Sometimes, a kid or parent can dig a little deeper and realize there IS more than they originally listed.
Bucknell is sounding better and better 
By STEM schools I mean those you listed and others where the STEM majors make up the biggest part of the school - WPI and RPI, Colorado School of Mines, MSST, Illinois Tech. These schools tend to have more males than females so if you are going to get a bump in admissions, it’s going to be more likely at one of these. There might be another major or school (music, theater, business) that attracts a specialty of students, but STEM is the main draw.
I don’t see a bump happening at big schools that are heavily STEM like Georgia Tech or Purdue. Maybe it does. WPI and Embry-Riddle have scholarships just for females. They aren’t keeping it secret that they want more women so if there is a bump, I think it is at the STEM schools. They have to attract females into STEM fields, not just get more females at the school in general.
Where she could get a big boost is at a service academy. They’d really like more females. Prestige, cost is right, not too nerdy.
@lookingforward, on a serious note, I do appreciate the advice. I think she does have some other ECs that I didn’t list, but nothing major.
We’ll see what we can do this summer, but it’s starting to feel like it’s a pipe dream and not worth the effort to even try improving her chances at the top schools.
Is there any way she could get one of the lead or co-lead positions in her robotics club for next year. There are usually a lot of positions in many different areas, with varying amounts of responsibility and demands on time. Programming and web master are the obvious ones that come to mind for her.
@BunnyBlue, that’s a great idea. I’m going to have her look into that. Does every team have a Webmaster? What do they do? Does each team have a Web site they maintain?
Thanks @twoinanddone. I can’t see her at a military academy, but it’s an interesting idea. We’re definitely going to give WPI a look.
@theloniusmonk, thanks. That’s a good idea. I haven’t looked very carefully at the ED/EA options at all of these schools yet. I was assuming they all have ED and not EA, except for Notre Dame, but I’ll have to look more carefully and come up with a plan. I’m sure most of these schools are going to fall of the list anyway after she visits.
@mathmom, it would be great for the older girls who are into STEM to expose the younger girls to it. That would actually be a great EC for my daughter.
@suzy100, that’s great that your daughter has fellow science girls right in her dorm with her. How does she like Notre Dame so far?
Our old community did programs in STEM like that where HS girls would mentor elementary and middle school girls in summer STEM programs and robotics competitions. They also mentored younger students in sci oly. SWE ran a lot of summer events as well where college students would be helping and mentoring.
D is rising CS premed junior at Vandy. Vandy is a great place where you can find kids who are smart and driven.
OP, while it might be too late for your D to go to a camp this summer, your D can do some community service related to STEM. D organized free classes on math Olympiad for younger kids during one summer at the library.
Also take SAT subject tests, math 2, chem, bio, etc. D had several of them. Vandy allows unlimited AP credits in Engineering school. D was able to start on Cal 3, bypassing cal 1 and cal 2 Engineering weed out.
Best of luck!
@WalknOnEggShells The teams usually have a website, but I think there might be some that just use Facebook. Google the team with its number, and see if there is a page that shows the current officers/leads. (There might not be one because of privacy concerns.) In any case, your D will be familiar with them. The types of leads and method of choosing them each year probably vary a lot among the teams. Some possible positions might be president and vice president, and leads for mechanical, safety, controls/programming, CAD, strategy, outreach/media, and webmaster.
If the prestige/reputation of the CS department is actually what you care about, you really should be looking at UIUC/UW-Seattle/UW-Madison/UMD.
yes
The linked article did not say that 55% of Cornell’s new CS class are women. It said that 55% of the incoming engineering class who are INTERESTED in CS are women. Cornell students do not declare their engineering major until usually sometime in sophomore year.
According to the ASEE website, Cornell reported having more than twice as many male CS grads in 2018. For the sophomore, junior and senior classes in 2018, all were male dominated. (The article did mention that some CS majors are in Arts and Sciences, so not in these stats).
So somewhere between their ‘interest in CS’ as incoming students and choosing the CS option in the dept. of engineering, females are choosing other things more than males do.
We can’t see all of the numbers, so we don’t fully know what is going on here. Are men very disproportionately flocking into the CS major in the engineering department from outside of the dept. and pushing the females back down to a minority? Doubt it. Are females, upon enrollment, disproportionately rejecting the CS major in he engineering department as sophomores? That seems more likely.
So, to your point, if the goal is to graduate an equal number of males and females in CS (in the eng dept.), Cornell would have to accept FAR more females than males. And, since the other engineering disciplines are so different from CS, I doubt those females are choosing other engineering disciplines instead. I suspect it is they are either choosing the arts & science CS option (which is puzzling, as the school reports the curriculum is identical), or they are choosing a completely different major. Unsure how easy that is at Cornell.
By the way, that about matches what the presenter reported when I was there last week- about one-third-ish female (she was asked).
We can conclude that Cornell is very motivated to create gender balance in CS, at the very least. It has a ways to go, though. If it wished to GRADUATE an equal number, it seems it would have to hugely increase the number of females enrolled in the engineering dept. , or do whatever is needed to reduce the heavy female attrition rate. Neither are easy without having an enormous impact on the engineering college overall.
Vexing problem.
You would think so. However the female candidate universe is so competitive and large. Anecdotally, looking at the local paper today and the profile of the top ten students coming out of a pretty large regional school.
9 out of 10 were young women. 6 out of the 9 said they were pursuing a stem field. Granted none at a UC. One girl to Cornell. The others to good but non CC mentioned type schools. The one boy who was number 9. Tufts.
My thought was perhaps it was actually easier for him than the young ladies.
The new hook perhaps?
Being a male applicant for a non stem or b school major. He was doing something else.
GT graduates more female engineers than any other university… by a factor of two.
Engineering Bachelor’s Degrees Awarded
to Women by School
- Georgia Institute of Technology 912
- University of California, San Diego 440
- University of Michigan 430
- Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 395
- Purdue University 392
Women Tenured/Tenure-Track
Faculty by School
- Georgia Institute of Technology 83
- University of Michigan 82
- Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 75
- Purdue University 73
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology 71
Harvey Mudd accepts a higher percentage of female candidates than male, but they get a lot more applications from males. As mentioned above regarding other top tech schools, the female pool is somewhat self selecting. That said, Mudd is committed to admitting a class that has a roughly 50/50 gender split, and is a terrific CS school.
They also have a higher percentage of female faculty that most other STEM schools or departments, which my D appreciated.