Yeah I don’t know where @halcyonheather got the idea that LAC’s “treat their students like children.” Maybe some strictly religious LAC possibly but otherwise I don’t have any idea what this refers to. Many LAC’s are in somewhat remote locations so living off campus may be more difficult than would be the case for a university in a more urban environment. But I don’t see it being a control issue at all.
Are top LACs doing enough to attract the best & brightest FEMALE math and physical science students?
So many kids already think stem is about the betterment of humanity. Male and female.
I don’t think they’re doing anything wrong. I’m just saying that this type of school wasn’t a good fit for me, and why.
(Happy New Year EST!)
Not to bring it up again (but yes, I guess I am 
), Mudd’s mission statement is:
Harvey Mudd College seeks to educate engineers, scientists, and mathematicians well versed in all of these areas and in the humanities and the social sciences so that they may assume leadership in their fields with a clear understanding of the impact of their work on society.
Maybe that is why they have good luck recruiting 50% women.
And once they know of a girl with strong STEM skills, who thinks she may be headed that way, Mudd does a great job at keeping in touch with her, and letting her know what is going on there on its campus. Not for everyone, but …
I think STEM is for the betterment of humanity, but it’s also innately interesting and much more than a means to an end. There was a small Carnegie Mellon study ([source](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/gendergap/www/papers/sigcse97/sigcse97.html)) on computer science students where men tended to be drawn in by “the computer itself as an alluring object” while women were more interested in “the uses of computing.” These types of findings can help computer science departments appeal to women, but they shouldn’t be exaggerated into stereotypes (however positive the stereotypes might seem). In addition, results about computer science wouldn’t necessarily hold for other disciplines.
HH, many kids apply saying they want that chance to better humanity, make more prosthetic limbs, solve energy delivery issues, dig better wells, cure disease. What they don’t understand is the actual work, how each individual plugs in to his/her job, what his/her actual role will be, the everyday aspects, as opposed to the glory ideas.
I think I misinterpreted #21 as a positive statement.
It’s necessary to have an interest in the subject you’re studying beyond the big things you might play a small part for in the distant future.
@BobShaw - I just detected a disconnect between the subject heading and the content of your post. The heading suggests some differential between the way LACs (i.e., small, residential liberal arts colleges) and big research universities recruit women STEM majors. BUT, the first sentence of the first paragraph conflates both LACs and the arts and science divisions of universities, inferring that they each may suffer from the same problem. If there is genuinely a problem across the board with all basic science, then, I don’tt know what the solution is. It seems to me that the beginnings of one would be at the grade school level, not senior year of h.s…
The more interesting question is, how do LACs compete with RUs for the very best STEM majors? Every statistic I have seen for the past twenty years suggests they are able to level the playing field by steering - on a per capita basis - just as many of their majors into PhD programs as the top twenty research universities. How? I suspect that small classes taught by professors engaged in publishable research have something to do with it.
I think many people have misconceptions about what LACs are, what they offer, and who can realistically attend them. They see a dichotomy between liberal arts and STEM because they think liberal arts = humanities.
@Corinthian - Thanks for sharing. Sounds like your D knows what she wants. My wife was also Math and Econ in undergrad, and I agree (or my wife agrees) with lookingforward about preparation for grad school. BTW, we need smart people in public policy pushing for sound policy around science, given the epidemic of science denial going around Washington D.C. lately.
@intparent - Mudd is an awesome school! We were very impressed. But the kids there told my D that it was better for engineering students, and that anyone who wasn’t interested in engineering (and more interested in exploring non-science areas as well) might have an EASIER time elsewhere because Mudd is so hard! 
But the kids are super-sharp AND extremely friendly. And they have the other 4Cs at their disposal.
@ClaremontMom - Wonderful to hear! I’m happy your D got such support and encouragement! Best of luck to her! Sounds like another of the 5Cs?
@lookingforward - Good insight, as always, thanks. I’m looking forward to a less stressful year in 2017! No election. No college apps. Bliss. Until it’s time to pay the first tuition bill in the fall.
@merc81 - That’s heartening news. Which LAC, if you don’t mind my asking? You can PM me too, if you prefer to keep it private. I would like to learn more about the school.
@ucbalumnus - Yes, true. There are a few schools with Astrophysics as a major, but even in those cases, I am thinking my D should major in regular Physics as an undergrad and take some classes in astronomy for interest. There will be plenty of opportunity to specialize in grad school. The fundamentals are important. What do you think?
@halcyonheather - Thanks for sharing your experience. What I’m hearing you say is, once you get up to the upper level courses, in some LACs, at least, you hit a ceiling because grad school classes are not available for further advancement. I guess that depends on the depth of offerings at a given school, but you’re right, the existence of a grad school broadens the offerings.
On a second point you make, I think LACs are working harder to dispel that myth about LA = humanities. Anyone who knows LACs understands the truth and respects the colleges, but there’s a huge population out there that doesn’t know and doesn’t bother to find out. So they stick with what they know, i.e., the RUs with name recognition. It was like that with me, when I was young. We had no clue. Now I know better, so I can steer my D in different directions, depending on her personality and interests.
@circuitrider - I think so too. The placement stats, small classes, and the attractiveness of publishable research without competing with grad students for spots helps attract good STEM students to LACs. They also throw out the NSF numbers at events. (e.g., Carleton)
Well, I think I got what I needed out of this conversation. Thanks, everyone! This is only my second CC thread. With each thread, I am learning more about CC etiquette and how to effectively use the forums. I’ll get less annoying over time.
And yes, STEM is and always has been for the betterment of humanity. Moderator, feel free to close the discussion.
Just noticed I’ve been promoted to Junior Member. Exciting.
Not sure who said Mudd is “better for engineering students”’. That is baloney. All the majors they offer are strong. It is a hard school, but no more or less for non-engineering majors. It isn’t great for pre-med given grade deflation and med schools’ focus on that. But otherwise, you would find strong physics, chem, math, and CS majors, with excellent employment and grad school results afterwards. And kids with other outside interests have a lot of other opportunities at the 5Cs.
I suspect the “better for engineering students”. comment really means that more students major in engineering (and CS) than the other majors—so “more popular” and “better” may be equivalent in that person’s mind.
Yes, @BobShaw, my D attends Scripps College (and my S attends Mudd).
A combined 50% of Mudders major in engineering or CS. So half the student body is majoring in something else.
I meant more engineers than bio or more engineers than physics etc. —not more engineers (and CS) than all others combined. For some people a smaller department may equate with “not as good”. (Not agreeing, just speculating on the comment. )
FWIW here are graduation rates
"I think the effort has to start before college. "
@intparent is right. So here is an observation from my D’s elite public high school. In the most advanced Physics class the school offers to seniors, there are 3 (count 'em) 3 women in a class of 24 kids. This is in a district that runs a STEM accelerator in middle school where the most science-oriented kids are tracked into classes with extra low student:teacher ratios, advanced math, extra hands-on science lab work, and encouragement to participate in science extracurricular activities (e.g., Science Olympiad). Then they get tracked into an appropriate high school curriculum.
So, what happened to the pipeline of these STEM kids between middle school and the end of high school? For the answer, all you need to do is to show up at the regional science research competition. County-wide, there are about 400 kids in my D’s class (across all the high schools in the county) who are involved with independent science research. Yet only a dozen of these kids are doing topics related to physics or engineering. I know; I counted. The vast, vast majority of these kids are doing some sort of pre-med related science research.
So the issue isn’t whether the top LACs are doing enough to attract the best and brightest female math and physical science students. The issue is that there just are not very many of these students to begin with. There could not be a more illustrative test case of what is actually going on than my D’s school district. There are no unmet academic needs in this district. Top paid faculty and administration in the country. And we produced 3 (count 'em) 3 women in the top-end physics course in 2017.
“So the issue isn’t whether the top LACs are doing enough to attract the best and brightest female math and physical science students. The issue is that there just are not very many of these students to begin with.”
My daughter, a freshman in college, found that when programs tout themselves as STEM-oriented and focused, they almost never meant math. (And once again I give a nod to Harvey Mudd for breaking that mold.) Many programs never focused or prepared to receive the math/physics-based student, but exclusively the bio or the engineering kid.
Where there is no opening for developing one’s less-sought-after science interest in local programs, even in those well-supported locals (outside of the olympiads), many students may find they have an easier time going forward in independent endeavors.
A couple of years ago I attended an American Physical Society conference on underrepresented minorities in physics, including women. The low numbers of women who choose physics is a concern for the society and there are many causes including, I believe, the way physics is taught. The culture is one where students are always being challenged, sometimes rather rudely. This is not a culture which is comfortable for those who are not supremely confident of their own abilities and since most physicists are trained in the same way, this can permeate all the way down to physics instruction in high school. I think that more and more physics department in universities are trying to change this culture and it sounds like Harvey Mudd, which is not an LAC but rather part of the [Association of Independent Technical Universities (AITU)](http://theaitu.org) is doing an outstanding job.
At my university, Illinois Tech (also an AITU school), we typically have 25-30% women in our undergraduate program and graduate programs. These are not great numbers but much better than when I started at the university 33 years ago and pretty much match the number of women we find in engineering. In the graduate program, it is absolutely clear that one way of keeping women (and not just women) in the program all the way through is to make sure that periodic evaluations of the student’s progress are not simply based on written exams but a full assessment of the student’s potential to do research. This is clearly a big change that has been made and a number of other programs are trying to do this too. Another change that we have tried to make in our undergraduate program is to emphasize that one can be a physicist without having to obtain a PhD; that physicists at all levels find jobs in many different fields and bring their training and thought processes with them. This kind of attitude encourages students to see the physics degree as valuable in itself not just as a stepping stone to a PhD.
I think that as we have more physics students trained in this way teaching in high schools, it might be possible to have more women and other minorities see it as a viable major and be encouraged to take advanced physics courses.
When D was looking at LACs last year, I looked at the fraction of math majors that were women. Being around other women who were math majors would make for a more supportive environment I figured. Here are some of those numbers:
From these pages
http://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/harvey-mudd-college/academic-life/academic-majors/mathematics-and-statistics/
Fraction of math majors that go to women 2014 - 2015; A few of the one’s that D considered. Didn’t apply to all these. In parentheses is the # of undergrad degrees awarded.
15% Wesleyan (39)
22% Reed (9)
25% Harvey Mudd (12)
25% Williams (57)
26% Bowdoin (46)
34% Carleton (38)
36% Swarthmore (25)
37% Amherst (60)
37% Pomona (46)
38% Colby (34)
38% Whitman (24)
39% Middlebury (18)
43% St Olaf (68)
50% Bates (26)
100% Smith (alas D wouldn’t consider a women’s college)
I am a female applied mathematician and know many female mathematicians and computer scientists. You have to put up with a bit of misogyny as a women in these fields. Those that stick around are those that are tougher and can brush that off. I think STEM departments could support young women majoring in STEM more simply by being honest that this happens and trying to create systems that don’t encourage bias. So many studies have shown that an application (like for faculty position or grad school in STEM) with a man’s name on it is rated more highly than that with a female’s name on it. I think it likely that this happens in grading also—though I have not seen studies to that effect. So far my D (math major) has really great support from her math advisor. The misogyny is low-grade standard stuff from male students in class—ignoring the female students and giving the blank stare when the females suggest an approach in the group sessions. I’m hopeful that’ll reduce when she’s in classes that are just for majors.