I am in search of suggestions for an LGBTQ (female) student who wants to study Computer Science. Dd is a very good student but no hooks. Competitive high school, lots of APs. No test scores yet. Typical ECs
Dd is concerned that CS isn’t always welcoming toward women and the lgbtq community and would like a school where there is support. Especially since a lot of the tech schools have a higher number of men to being with. At this point, dd hasn’t picked a location or size school. Full pay, so please don’t focus on that angle. Interested in all levels - reach, safety, target. Especially since we don’t really have firm numbers for GPA and test scores. Right now just looking for schools that are known for supporting women and the lgbtq community in CS.
We plan to visit schools like WPI and Col. Mines (worried about the M/F ratio there). I welcome any input on those, but also looking for others to add.
I think schools in general these days are especially attentive to lgbtq women. You should just go and choose the best schools for CS that she can get into, and not complicate life over thinking this. This doesn’t mean you will get special attention in CS classes just for being lgbtq though. You will be treated like any one else.
Someone on the Alabama forum wrote that her gay son had a wonderful time there. Don’t sorry too much. Look at a variety of programs. Large schools might well be your best bet. Fit and affordability will be important. UIUC and UMD come to mind right off the top. NCSU is quite possibly the most underrated STEM school in the US.
I think most colleges do okay with queer students these days, but obviously your child may feel most at home at a place with plenty of other queer women. She’ll find lots of them at most large schools, by virtue of their size. And large schools tend to have at least decent CS programs.
Since you mentioned tech-type schools… similar in some ways to WPI is Rochester Institute of Technology. The student who led our RIT virtual session was utterly delightful. She is a lesbian who loves it there. She said there is definitely a fun quirky vibe on campus. When we visited in person, our tour guide was a trans guy who also loves it there. They have a gender imbalance (66% male) but it’s not as bad as some places. Our kid (straight but most of his friends are queer) is a weirdo and we all felt like it would be a great fit for him.
I’ve also heard that Rose-Hulman is quite a supportive place for LGBTQ folks, and they have gender-inclusive housing options, but there is a pretty big gender skew (75% male).
These are schools that aren’t super hard to get into and are strong in CS, which may make them targets for your child. They are in the same category as WPI, except WPI is trying extra hard to gain gender parity.
There are other CC posters that can recommend LACs for CS (including women’s colleges), so that might be a good place to look. It can be hard to fill CS faculty positions at smaller schools, so many of the good programs are at big and/or fancy schools. Only some will be good fits for your child (socially and in other ways). Here’s a couple of threads:
My kid is at a very competitive engineering school. Honestly, they are all so damn busy studying, trying to keep their heads above water, nobody has time to worry about another’s sexuality. I think most college students are accepting.
Thank you for this! I keeping putting RIT on the list and taking it off, but we should definitely check it out. I want her to visit Smith and Mt. Holyoke, but not sure how they are in CS - I will take a look at the other threads you linked.
And thanks to the poster who suggested Purdue and UMD. I don’t know much about NC State, so I’ll look into that also.
Dd is not looking for “special attention in class” or whatever that was all about. She just wants somewhere where the other students are respectful and supportive. While I am sure that most colleges are trying, unfortunately not all students are there yet.
I agree with ColdWombat that most large schools will meet your criteria. While you are visiting Mines, add CU and CSU. Both schools have good CS programs and both are LGBTQ friendly. Also, Fort Collins and Boulder are supportive communities.
UMD would be fine, close to DC. Have you considered CU Boulder? Also UWash Seattle? Stick to blue states obviously, or at least don’t go anywhere else without a lot of research and talking to actual lgbtq students/or parents. If the school is fine, what about the surroundings? Can your d kiss her gf outside the bar on Saturday night? What are your other criteria? Tufts, Northwestern are both good. Columbia, Brown are super reaches obviously. Smith is a good thought.
My LGBTQ son is a freshman at Cornell. He is extremely happy. His entire friend network (and it is much bigger and stronger than high school) are almost exclusively LGBT kids. Believe it or not, the vast majority are CS majors, and it is about a 50/50 gender split. He has multiple female lesbian CS Major friends that I already know the names of and he has only been there 10 weeks.
Cornell has an LGBTQ living option called Loving House with a nice lounge and even though my son doesn’t live in Loving House, they allow any student to have a membership. He spends almost all of his free time there. And the kids he has met all seem extremely nice, hard working and focused on academics. They are not wild party kids at all, which my son definitely isn’t as well.
I know CS at Cornell is a reach for almost any applicant but in case Cornell is an option your daughter would consider, know that there is absolutely a very strong, safe community for your daughter there. I would be happy to connect your daughter with my son if you think that would be helpful, you can DM me if you would like.
If you’re not picky about location, consider University of Alabama at Birmingham. A friend’s LGBTQ daughter recently graduated with a CS degree and is making six figures at a company based in Alabama. She met her girlfriend (now wife) on the first day of classes and they enjoyed a wonderful four years there. I never heard of any incidents or hostility directed at them either on campus or in the city. UAB is affordable too, awarding good merit for a wide range of academic achievement.
Oh, same. But OP didn’t list any restrictions about location. I’m just providing information. Families can decide for themselves which factors matter to them when choosing a college.
I didn’t specify a blue/red state location because that tends to derail threads into debates about whether it is the school, the city, or the state that is important or exactly how red/blue/purple a location is.
In addition, we are in a red state so we know the drill. I am open to all suggestions at this point and she will narrow her list taking a variety of factors into account. I will say that while I am sure Bama is a wonderful school for many people, it is not a fit for this student, but that information might be useful for someone else reading the thread so I appreciate the input.
OP mentioned CO School of Mines. FWIW, we know two students from our area that started at Mines this fall, one cis female and one non-binary. Both seem to be having good experiences thus far.
I think this is the wrong way to select a CS school, TBH. There’re issues that are more material, IMO, than minor differences between schools in terms of the relative proportions of students who are LGBTQ. Particularly in STEM, students tend to care a lot less about someone else’s sexuality or gender identity.
Definitely visit Mines. The reputation is that it’s an excellent school for hard rock engineering, but the student body leans conservative. I think CS may be one of their weaker majors. Most in-state kids prefer CU or CSU for engineering; Boulder and Fort Collins are much livelier than Golden.
Some students nix schools for far less important reasons: the school colors, the landscaping, the number of coffee shops on campus, etc.
Some straight boys don’t want to go to a school that is 75% guys, because dating while in college is important to them, or because they just like having women as friends and classmates. Some straight girls don’t want to go to a school that is 75% guys because they don’t want to be pestered incessantly by all those boys. Those are all totally valid reasons and I don’t think most people would call that not “material” or the “wrong way” to select a school.
There are many factors that go into school selection. My kid is weird. No matter how much he tries, he will not have a great experience at a college that is full of the type of kids that are super popular at his HS, but has few other weirdos. There are some schools that got deleted from his list because of that. It doesn’t matter how strong the academics are. If he was queer, these factors would be even more important in his school selection. It just so happens that there is a lot of overlap in the venn diagram of queer kids and weird kids, so he’ll end up at a queer-friendly place anyhow. And he is confident he’ll find his people at any of the schools that are still on his list.
The differences that seem “minor” to an outsider can end up being super important to the kid in the minority. I applaud the kid who can figure out ahead of time that something like the number of students who are queer or Black or whatever is an important factor to them. It’s all about fit, and many things can be important factors in finding the right fit for some students.
This is a great response, thank you. The atmosphere of the school is very important to dd.
And to be clear, dd is less worried about the number of lgbtq students than she is about the attitude the other students have toward women and lgbtq students in CS/STEM. She has experienced the boys at her high school talking over her, pretending not hear her when she asks a question, taking all the leadership positions, etc. This is a fairly liberal high school that has a number of girls in STEM classes.
She doesn’t want to repeat that in college. She wants a place where women (and lgbtq) students are allowed to participate by the male students. This is important to her as a female, even without the lgbtq component. Anecdotally, it seems that there are still many colleges where the cis men treat those who are not as less important. I understand that some of you think that isn’t an issue or shouldn’t be an issue, but from the stories she and I have heard it does still happen.
So, I do not think this is a minor concern or that she is expecting special attention. She has experience with this in high school and does not want the same experience in college.
