<p>Although all the admissions data I have been able to find supports the idea that there is generally a higher acceptance rate for women than for men in engineering schools, I have not been able to find the cause.</p>
<p>Is there an Affirmative Action thing going on here or is it that the women whom DO choose to go into the field are all extremely well-qualified as a whole?</p>
<p>To elaborate, are the scores and qualifications of women who are accepted comparable to or lower than those of their male counterparts?</p>
<p>If it helps, I'm most interested in attending Carnegie Mellon University, where about 1/4 of male applicants and 1/3 of female applicants are accepted into the engineering program.</p>
<p>I have the feeling that there is some preference given to female applicants, so that the gender disparity can be lessened somewhat. They are still likely held to the same academic standards, though.</p>
<p>agreed with s.t.
they want the M:F ratio to be closer to 50-50 and in the past not very many females were interested in engineering, so there was sort of an affirmative action thing going on. now, with emerging fields like BME and others, a lot more women are pursuing engineering so there is far less need for “affirmative action” towards women in science/eng.
hope this helps!</p>
<p>I follow several Tier 1 schools pretty closely, and I haven’t really seen a huge disparity between male/female stats. I do notice that females tend to have higher GPA / lower SAT’s than males, but I think that’s a general trend across the board with students (not just engineering applicants). </p>
<p>I think you see a higher acceptance rate among females because they self-select. Engineering is not a female-dominated field, so the women that are interested in entering it are disproportionately more driven and more well-researched before applying.</p>
<p>Let’s be realistic, at schools like Caltech (12 vs 26), MIT (8 vs 17), Harvey Mudd (26 vs 47) and Olin (11 vs 36), where acceptance rates are 2-3.5 times higher for girls, it’s easier to get in. If more guys are interested, but you want to stay near 50-50, obviously you have to give a preference. That doesn’t mean that you can get in without good stats, but there will be a little more leniency, and if you have good scores, ECs will be less important, and it’s much less of a crapshoot. </p>
<p>It’s certainly possible to not give a preference to girls either - Georgia Tech is happy to retain its 2-1 ratio with equal acceptance rates.</p>