<p>I’m bumping this thread for the benefit of students who are admitted ED this year. I hope that it answers some of your questions and gives you a few laughs.</p>
<p>^^It is fascinating, and rather sad how some of the girls here are making generalizations on just one or two experiences.</p>
<p>You think the girls are making generalizations in this thread?? This entire thread is about the girls! Maybe I’m biased, but my sister goes to CMU and perhaps me this upcoming fall, and I have to say this amount of judging is fairly off-putting (…but admittedly hilarious). Neither of us are remotely interested in CS or anything of the sort, but still. </p>
<p>I’ve been to CMU several times and never noticed anything any different from the handful of other campuses I’ve visited. Any high tier school has the “nerds” from high school; it’s nothing to be shocked about.</p>
<p>This thread – it’s dry and hilarious. Fate is once again correct.</p>
<p>I am copying and pasting this from a much broader write-up I did in another thread where someone made a 1 sentence reference to this ‘issue’. For reference, I am an IS graduate from the class of 2008 and have been on campus frequently since.</p>
<hr>
<p>I am not going to go too far down the ‘CMU women’ discussion line other than to say I have never agreed with those criticisms or their reasoning. There are plenty of smart and beautiful people walking around campus and if they don’t appeal to you there are 5-6 other colleges within walking distance that have different demographics and student bases (most notable Pitt, Carlow, Duquesne, Chatham, etc). There are also tons of other non-college-related (and non-alcohol-related too if that’s your thing) places to meet other people.</p>
There are definitely exceptions. My daughter has been with Ford International Models for years and is a working actress. She plans to major in cs and CMU is her favorite school at this point. Her bf is also planning to major in cs and he is a football player. Not average but record breaking, captain of the team, being heavily recruited by many schools kind of player. So there is hope. If we could change the way the media portrays these stereotypes it would help open the field even more. My daughter did a huge research paper for MIT about how the stereotypes of girls in computer science are keeping smart pretty girls who have an aptitude for math and science away. These girls however are all over forensic science because of shows like CSI and Crossing Jordan. Before those shows forensic science was mostly male. Now it is predominately women. Attractive women didn’t suddenly get better at the skills needed. They suddenly felt they might fit in. But when you think of computer science girls on tv…they are all extreme sterotypes. This makes a young pretty girl doubt she could fit in. If only we could get a lot of attractive girls in these roles it would help. And Chris Hemsworth (sexiest man alive this year) playing an MIT computer science major in Blackhat can’t hurt either!