<p>Will applying to Duke's engineering school as a female boost my chances of acceptance?</p>
<p>Do you mean vs. a male applying to the Engineering school or vs. applying to Trinity?</p>
<p>I'd say the answer in either respect is not really. I don't know that for a fact but I do know that we enginerds typically have higher test scores and such than the trinity kids. (I know my year we had a higher math and verbal average score on the SAT than Trinity) As for weather you'd have an easier time as a female than a male, that might be true but only if you are competitive to begin with. I would definatly only apply to be an engineer if you actually want to be an engineer. Don't apply to the engineering school because you think it will be easier to get in and then you'll switch over to Trinity. Apply where you want to go.</p>
<p>I already applied early decision and I do want to be an engineer, this is just information that I was told and I am questioning it's validity. I do mean female vs. male, not Pratt vs. Trinity. I don't know how competitive I am to begin with, but I guess we'll just have to see when December comes around. Thanks for your response.</p>
<p>In my opinion, I think that if you're a girl that's interested in math and science, and your test scores and high school classes show that, then you'll have a better chance at getting in to Pratt than Trinity. I'm a girl in Pratt and I joke all the time about how I probably wouldn't have got in if I applied to Trinity. Usually about 50% of girls that apply to Pratt early get in.</p>
<p>Wow, it really has that much of an impact? Hopefully that means good news for me, unless all the other girls applying have amazing credentials, which will probably be the case. Did you apply early, DukeRose?</p>
<p>yeah I applied early</p>
<p>
Will applying to Duke's engineering school as a female boost my chances of acceptance?
Am I a bad person if my first thought upon reading this was, "can you change gender at will???" As far as I understand it, the metrics for men and women are not appreciably different.</p>
<p>No, that's what I thought too. It isn't exactly something you have control over so it isn't really something you need to worry about when applying. (and its not like there are no female engineering students, there are lots of them!)</p>
<p>The main reason I was asking is because the national average female to male ratio in engineering schools is 17%-83% according to a letter I received from Bucknell. Also, there is an article on the Duke website called Why Women Succeed about female engineers. I wasn't really sure if these meant anything when associated with the admissions pool, so that's why I was asking. I don't think that will change your answers, I just didn't want to sound like an idiot for having no reason to ask the question haha</p>
<p>I think they'll look at gender as a major factor since they want women more involved in engineering. Still, it probably won't be the final clincher if you get accepted or not. </p>
<p>Still, those Pratt students, whoo~ They must be hardcore from looking at their SAT scores.</p>
<p>Don't want to steal your thread, but it seems like your question was answered, so...</p>
<p>I want to apply for engineering but I really don't have much background in it. No outside research, etc. Will that really hurt my chances for Pratt? I've taken Physics and Calculus, but that's about it. My rec letters aren't even going to be from Physics or Calc teachers. Obviously I wrote about my interest in engineering in the supplement essay but I feel that it is a little generic. But on the other hand, I have good test scores esp in math and science (although not physics or anything related to engineering")</p>
<p>I know that acceptance to Pratt for RD (and ED for that matter) is higher than for Trinity, but does this only mean that the applicant pool for Pratt is just more competitive than that for Trinity? And it is still equally as hard to get into?</p>
<p>I just reread my last post and realized it sounds a little misleading.</p>
<p>The thing is, I haven't made up my mind as to whether I want to go into engineering. A lot of it fascinates me right now, but at the same time I'm interested in subjects at Trinity too. I really want to go to Duke though but I'm afraid that applying for engineering will hurt me since I don't seem to have enough background knowledge. Do they look highly upon those with past research experience, etc?</p>
<p>Past research experience is NOT necessary. Really.</p>
<p>As for not knowing for sure whether engineering is for you, one thing you may want to keep in mind is that it is much easier to transfer from Pratt to Trinity that to transfer from Trinity to Pratt!</p>
<p>You really don't need to have a pre-demonstrated experience with engineering to apply to Pratt. (I only decided to do biomedical engineering junior/senior year of high school when I had to finally sit down and think about what I might want to do in college)</p>
<p>Oh and are you sure that Pratt has a higher acceptance rate than Trinity? I was always under the impression it was the other way around. (our scores are pretty consistently higher but maybe we just get less applicants...) Of course my year was the highest number of Pratt applications (and enrollment) to date I think so it might just be that I think that because of the year I applied.</p>