Does a female have a better shot at getting accepted to Yale if she applied to the computer science program. I hear that Yale is behind in CS compared to MIT and Stanford.
Not sure of your chances, but here is an article about Yale’s renewed commitment to CS: http://news.yale.edu/2015/03/26/yale-launches-expansion-department-computer-science
I’m not sure about admissions, but the Yale Daily News just had an interesting article about women in CS at Yale.
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2016/01/29/a-programming-parity/
It might help to indicate it as a potential major, but admissions is not to a particular program at Yale. Re being “behind” MIT and Stanford in CS, that is the popular perception. DS is thriving in CS, so no complaints here.
Nationwide, men made up 82% of BS CS degrees in 2011, so nearly 100 males out of 119 is right around the national average.
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d12/tables/dt12_349.asp
Interesting data goldenbear2020 - sounds like a few of the Ivies with higher numbers are the outliers then.
The highest proportion in the Ivies is at Columbia, where I believe students have to apply for CS (or at least to the engineering school). I believe that’s also the case at Cornell, which also has one of the higher numbers. So that’s different than at Yale where anyone admitted can choose to major in CS assuming they can do the work. I’m not sure how or if the different approaches to admissions affect numbers of men and women though.
Of course these are small numbers where one or a few people plus or minus in a given year can have a significant impact on the percentages.
A few thoughts:
- As @IxnayBob notes, admission to Yale is to the college as a whole, not to a particular program. Even if an applicant has an intended major, switches are common.
- That said, Yale is interested in recruiting top STEM applicants. YES-W is one effort in that area, to "recruit" top STEM applicants who are likely to have a choice of top colleges. Those applicants generally have well established credentials.
- Women in STEM is definitely an advantage, but it's not enough just to "declare" a major like CS. Having a well-established record of interest and achievement in that area would be more likely to make an impact on the admissions committee. There's no free "hook" to be had here.
- The top 4 CS departments in the country are generally considered to be MIT, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon and UC Berkeley, in no particular order. Yale lags well behind. But that doesn't mean that an undergrad cannot get a solid CS education there. Overcrowding of CS students is a significant problem at many schools.
- Because CS is emerging as a highly sought after major due to it's earning potential, schools which have not had strong CS departments are adjusting to increase their presence in this area. Harvard and Yale have both received significant funding to increase their engineering and applied science efforts. Princeton's president has also affirmed a commitment to CS. Penn Digital Media Design grads make more coming out of college than do Wharton grads. The schools with the biggest name CS departments are not necessarily the best place to get a good undergrad education for a prospective CS major. And while the "top 4" aren't likely to be displaced anytime soon, there is plenty of room for academic powerhouses to join the ranks of top CS schools. I expect there will be a lot of shift in the perception of top CS programs in the next 5-10 years.
I hope that helps.
@pickpocket I applied for computer science at Yale so if I don’t receive a Yes-W letter should I expect a rejection email in March? 
@study222 not at all. Most accepted students, including cs majors, never see a likely letter
FWIW, when we toured at Yale this past summer, they mentioned that they are working hard to build up the CS department and that currently the faculty : student ration is flipped – it’s greater than 1:1. Seems to me that (a) Yale would be particularly interested in students intending to major in CS and (b) if you do get in, you’re likely to be able to get a lot of faculty attention if you want it.
@SoccerMomGenie , I’m not sure that the student-teacher ratio is flipped, but DS has had zero difficulty getting faculty attention, cutting edge research opportunities, on-campus employment, and a great summer internship.
@SoccerMomGenie I created a website in freshman year (which is still growing) for writers and publishers to share and promote books…do you think that will help…I’ve been working on it since 2012 and proud of the attention it has received. I hope they appreciate it as much as I do. I wrote my essay on it. (not the common app)
@study222 Don’t sweat it. Yes, the small subset invited to YES-W are shoo-ins, but many others are still in the running. Just relax and see what happens late March (this is what I have to tell my son.)
I hope that being a female and the fact that I created an internet service during freshman year (which continues to thrive) will be an edge for me in helping get accepted into Yale’s computer science school. Fingers crossed
I’ve been reading articles on how to stand out on your application. I read that creating a “spike” in your application is ideal which helps you stand out. Does anyone have an opinion about this theory?
I’ve been reading articles on how to stand out on your application. I read that creating a “spike” in your application is ideal which helps you stand out. Does anyone have an opinion about this theory? If so, what are good examples of “spikes”? I read that someone created an app which helped him get into computer science because it supported his passion for computer science, which was his “spike”, as opposed to being well rounded at mastering nothing.
@Study222: These days colleges are NOT looking for well-rounded students. Instead, they are looking for “well-lopsided” students who will make up a well-rounded CLASS. See: http://blog.thrively.com/think-its-important-to-be-well-rounded-think-again/
As a result, all students – no matter what college they are applying to or what their intended major – need to highlight their “well-lopsidedness.”
It’s a bit late in the process for you, but if you are thinking about CS as a major, I would have recommended that you create a website with any computer games, programs, designs, animations etc that you have created and submit it to all colleges on your list via the Common Application. You could have included the link and a brief description of it in the ADDITIONAL INFORMATION section of the Common Application. Five years ago that is what my son did, and I think it’s what helped him get accepted to 10 out of 11 colleges, including Yale, Princeton, Brown, Dartmouth, Georgetown, Williams, Pomona, Wesleyan, Vanderbilt and SUNY Binghamton.
If you have a website that you now wish to submit with your CS projects (not just the one site you created for writers and publishers but something more detailed that would let a computer professor play your game on-line via something like an java applet with a sub-link to the actual code), you should FAX an update letter to each college on your list and give them a link to your website. Best of luck to you!
Did everything right but still got denied from Yale. I guess It’ll be Villanova or Penn State Park. :((