Female Engineering Student applying to UMichigan

Hi,

First, I just want to say I am new to College Confidential (so I apologize for any mistakes in online etiquette).

I have a question regarding admissions. I am applying to the University of Michigan for engineering, and I noticed that it’s around 26% female (I checked the admissions site).

For some background info, I am a white female, who has 1510 SAT superstore (780M, 730ERW), and I am 2/390 in my class (all honors/Ap classes with all A+’s except for one A- in honors English). I feel like I am a pretty strong candidate (my EC’s are diverse and strong as well), so I am hoping for the best.

However, because the gender ratio for females is so low, is that a good sign? Will that help or hurt me? Does that mean I would be underrepresented (so admissions would want more females and this would help in my favor) OR does this mean that they don’t care about the ratio and only take the best qualified students, which would hurt me? I am not sure where I could find this information (I know that some schools like CalTech don’t care about the ratio and only take the most qualified students, so I am not sure if UMich does the same for engineering). Thanks!

You are a very strong applicant. I don’t know if being female helps your application (it sure won’t hurt), but I would classify gender preference in admissions as one of those things applicant’s can’t control anyway. Show UM lots of love. They don’t like to be the safety school for ivy applicants.

Yes, they like females. It’s 26% percnet female because females usually don’t apply to Engineering. They’ve been trying to drive that number up for years, and girls usually have an easier time getting in than guys.

If you’re in-state, you;re pretty much a lock if you have a 3.9+ and some okay essays (engineering doesn’t care nearly as much about essays).

Not your question, but Cornell is 50:50 F/M. Are you instate for Mi?

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I’ll strongly disagree with this statement. Having watched the Michigan forum for several years, there are lots of high GPA/high SAT/ACT HS students who have been rejected. One CC member here had her S rejected with a 4.0/1,600 and now attends CalTech.

Essays are important to any UMich school. The UMich CDS (Common Data Set) states that fact. You have to show them you want to come, otherwise you’re potentially just going to be another high stat rejection.

In general, it would be a positive. I don’t think college-specific acceptance rates are available, but at several STEM schools where they are, female acceptance rates are higher as schools try to raise that ratio.

For UM as a whole, the female acceptance rate was 25.2% vs. the male rate of 20.7%. I wouldn’t be surprised if much of this reflected an attempt to adjust the STEM ratio.

(Fwiw, Caltech’s admission rates are 11.2% vs. 4.5%. They have a 55/45 undergraduate ratio despite a 72/38 applicant ratio last year. So I’m not sure your statement about them is accurate.)

It’s also not just about odds of getting in: there’s being there for 4 years.

Idk undergrad engineering at UMi enough to have an opinion on how it is there, but I know that there are UG engineering programs that are more and less welcoming to their women students (both by faculty and other students). I would reach out to current women engineering students at each of the places you are seriously interested in to se how they are finding it irl, on the metrics that matter to you. Most schools have an ‘undergraduate women in engineering’ group- and if not, there is certainly an ‘UG women in physics group’. Find it, reach out to them. Esp in engineering, the branding is going to make less of a difference than your lived experience of the program.

D’s close friend graduated from UM engineering last year and she had a wonderful experience.

It’s the rare school that has an even male female ratio in engineering. There is a good amount of literature that shows that female applicants tend to have higher stats than their male counterparts so even if there is a slightly higher acceptance rate, the competition is even more.

My D is at Purdue. They also have less than 30% women in engineering although there is a lot of variability depending on the major. It ranges from a low of 14% in aero to 53% in env eng. She’s active in SWE and feels perfectly at home on campus and in her classes.

As far as UM goes, consider it a reach even with your stats if you are OOS.

@Groundwork2022 thank you for getting back to me! I will definitely make sure to emphasize that I want to go to UMich after seeing all these comments!

@liltiger30 thank you for responding! That is good that they like females for engineering and that it will hopefully benefit me. I am out of state (Northeast).

@collegemom3717 I am out of state for Michigan (I’m from the Northeast). That is interesting about Cornell - I might apply there too! Also that is a good point about the 4 years after, I should definitely make sure that they are welcoming to females.

@sushiritto thank you for replying. I will DEFINITELY work on my essays to show them I am extremely interested.

@RichInPitt thank you for getting back to me! (also I heard about CalTech’s ratio from someone so it was probably not that accurate, so thank you for correcting me because I would not know otherwise)