Gender Imbalance

Parents Forum
41

<p>There must be something in the water in Virginia these days.</p>

<p>I think theres been.....

[quote]

The state’s major river associations launched an effort Thursday to lobby the General Assembly for a steady funding source to clean up Virginia’s waterways.</p>

<p>Nearly 7,000 miles of rivers and streams in Virginia - more than half of all those monitored by the state - are polluted and listed on the Clean Water Act’s “dirty waters” list.......</p>

<p>Earlier this year, the General Assembly agreed to spend $50 million from the general fund to upgrade sewage treatment plants. While the House of Delegates committed to spending that amount in each of the next 10 years, there was no law passed to guarantee it, Street said.</p>

<p>“Right now the funding’s sort of here today, gone tomorrow,” he said.</p>

<p>Even with this year’s additional funding, Virginia ranks near the bottom of all 50 states in its funding for natural resources, spending approximately 1 percent of its budget.</p>

<p>The state will spend about $97 million in the coming year on water quality improvement, far short of the estimated $160 million to $230 million needed annually to clean up the state’s waters, including the Chesapeake Bay.

[/quote]
</p>

42

<p>wow, I was just looking at the MIT '04-'05 common data set (<a href="http://web.mit.edu/ir/cds/2005/c.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://web.mit.edu/ir/cds/2005/c.html&lt;/a&gt;) for gender admissions, and women, as one might expect, have a significant admissions edge:</p>

<p>Women admitted/applied = 27.4%
Men admitted/applied = 11.7%
Overall = 15.9%</p>

<p>Yield is lower for women, however, at 60%, vs men at 69%.</p>

43

<p>I wonder where the women are going- if admitted to MIT but don't attend?
UChicago? Harvey Mudd?</p>

44

<p>My 8th grade daughter was interviewing for a position in an elite high school here in NYC but ultimately withdrew her application because, among a couple of other reasons, the freshman classes in the last two years have been over 75% female. Admission is based on test scores, resume and specific criteria as part of an interview process. She just doesn't want to be in such an unbalanced environment.</p>

45

<p>interesting article on this subject recently published:
<a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/531ffoaa.asp?pg=1%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/531ffoaa.asp?pg=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

46

<p>Okay so with females kicking males butts, why do we still have so many fewer women going into engineering, physics, math in college, even though they do so well in high school in these courses? Our AP physics classes at our hs are two thirds girls, but they don't go on to major in science nearly as often. If anything, they get a "tip" when applying in male dominated fields, but they don't go for it in college a much as men.
It is no longer because they are discriminated against in HS - I have had kids at the same school for 6 years and the top graduating HS seniors in math and science have always been girls.</p>