<p>I guess it would never occur to me that there would be a problem of women in sciences at top 20 colleges as far a sexism, which is what I think you mean. I think premeds and bio majors are mostly women although I might be mistaken. I do think that sexism is pernicious, so I don’t want to dismiss and it would be unrealistic to think one doesn’t encounter it, especially in the workplace. I think the culture at individual schools is going to be different. At Brown, my daughter took classes mostly in math, physics and computer science and I think there were only 6 females in her department class. I don’t think this was any problem for her and she experienced good support and relationships with her department friends, grad students she researched and mingled with and professors. I never heard about problems. She was a peer adviser and TA as a jr and sr. I know she did some activity with the Women in Sciences and Engineering group and was sent to a women in computing conference as well as was one of the students sent to the international robotics conference and has plenty of research experiences. That said, she did tell the university president they didn’t do enough to encourage women in computing and I think she would have liked more in her classes. It is a pretty ridiculous when one of the most respected departments in the Uni only has a handful of women in the department. Of course this is a known larger issue, and not caused by the actions of the uni particularly, and they don’t admit by major.</p>
<p>So I wouldn’t expect it to be an issue, but colleges vary. DD has remarked before on the collaborative and cooperative culture at Brown, especially noticed when she was visiting potential grad schools.</p>
<p>Confidence comes from within. But joining up in the Women in Science groups on campus to tap support and resources is a great idea.</p>
<p>I don’t think there is data on students changing majors and why. I hear organic chem is famous for separating the men from the boys of both sexes, lol.</p>