Most colleges have more women than men these days for a variety of societal reasons. However many engineering / polytechnic /STEM schools skew heavily male. I’ve noticed that my daughter (HS class of 2025) has been getting lots of mail from these types of schools due to her intended STEM major. I’m wondering if these schools attempt to even out their enrollment #s by marketing to female students in particular and if so, are admit rates are higher for female students?
It probably depends on the school, but I guess I’m wondering if those schools just accept the fact that engineering programs attract a majority-male population or if they actively seek to even out the gender distribution in hopes of creating a more well-rounded student body. Thanks!
MIT does try to balance out the male/female mix. This does make it slightly less difficult for a female student to be admitted.
As an MIT alumni, who attended back when the male/female mix was seriously out of balance, I think that the current approach is a good thing. It makes life more normal for students who are living there for four years.
Admit rate for women at Georgia Tech is one and a half times higher than admit rate for men. This translates into a 10 to 15% admission bump. Georgia Tech also has an active women in STEM recruiting process that contacts admitted female students in an attempt to sway their decision.
From reading this thread, it sounds like this is common in top engineering schools.
I think in addition to admit rates, there may also be some higher merit aid awarded to female applicants to STEM schools as opposed to male applicants. This is totally anecdotal, but it seemed to be the case on the various message boards when my son was applying (he’s a college sophomore now), at least according to the people who reported on merit aid.