<p>I thought MIT was 45:55 ish?</p>
<p>no, its pretty even. I still don't see why Caltech is 70-30 when MIT is 50-50.</p>
<p>As Ben said, in the MIT applicant pool, the women pwn the men. Presumably this is not so in the Caltech applicant pool.</p>
<p>MIT incoming freshmen last year was a bit skewed towards 40-60 (42-58 IIRC), but if you considered all undergraduates (fresmen-seniors), it was 50-50.</p>
<p>This is a complicated topic. </p>
<p>Thought experiment: suppose you took the applicant pool of school S and picked out 100 random applications subject to the constraint that none of them would be significantly alterned by removing all gender-specific information. (For example, applications involving ballet or rugby as major activities would not be in the pile.) Each of these applications is now duplicated into versions F and M: one with a female name (and pronouns, etc.) and a corresponding male version.</p>
<p>Now, send each pair through the admissions process, but make sure that nobody sees both the M and F versions of an application (for obvious reasons). Note that this already introduces an impracticality. At both MIT and Caltech, as far as I know, the Director looks over all the final decisions. But since decisions are so very rarely changed at this stage, this should not make too much of a difference.</p>
<p>Look at the rates of admission for the M applications versus the F applications. Is there a significant difference?</p>
<p>I don't think this design is susceptible to the obvious criticisms, so I won't go through the replies one-by-one... but I'd be happy to reply if you think you've found a reason why the experiment sucks.</p>
<p>My (not completely uninformed) opinion is that at both Caltech and MIT the answer to the question (about whether there would turn out to be a significant difference) is yes, possibly to varying degrees.</p>
<p>The implications of that are another matter :)</p>
<p>Thanks Ben!</p>
<p>That makes sense. I think all schools do have some gender discrimination. Some schools have more, some have less. But hey, we're human, and the process will never be perfect.</p>
<p>We were discussing this in English class today...and according to Flaubert, this is because women are intellectually inferior.</p>
<p>"A learned woman is twice the fool" or something like that. :)</p>
<p>
[quote]
I think all schools do have some gender discrimination.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No. I think if you ran this experiment at Harvard or Princeton, you'd find that the M and F versions would be treated equally. What contrary evidence is there?</p>
<p>This is not an "everyone has it" kind of issue, I think. (Though certainly other schools award preferences based on race, or culture, or income, etc.)</p>
<p>Yes, but at any of those schools, a guy in ballet and a girl in rugby would have advantages! So... I think the stereotype would be more applicant-centered than school-centered.</p>
<p>I am not very sure of this nor do I want to offend anyone but in a national daily
I read that it has been scientifically proven that the analytical and logical section of a male's brain works four times better than a female's but the presence of mind or verbal section of females is way better than males so thats why males always fail to argue.</p>
<p>This is just something I read and not meant to offend anyone.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I read that it has been scientifically proven that the analytical and logical section of a male's brain works four times better than a female's but the presence of mind or verbal section of females is way better than males so thats why males always fail to argue.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I find that really hard to believe. I know men and women are different, but if the difference were that extreme there would be very few women pursuing science and being successful at MIT, Caltech, etc. While we may have an "edge" in admission I doubt the professors employ an affirmative action grade policy in their classes.</p>
<p>I think the popular culture interpretation of some discoveries in neuroanatomy/brain function is distorted from the actual implications of the work. It's true that many studies have shown on average that the brains of men and women exhibit anatomical and (apparently) metabolic differences, but a few things should be stressed: 1) it's unclear what the functional implications of such differences are, and 2) these studies only give average values -- this is often like saying "men are taller than women" when in fact many individual men are shorter than many individual women.</p>
<p>I think it's possible to say "the brains of men and women appear to work slightly differently on average", but I hope it's obvious how different that statement is from "it has been scientifically proven" etc.</p>
<p>yeah mathwiz, and some schools have a HUGE gender discrimination! Take Wellesley...99% female ;)</p>
<p>EDIT: As to why it isn't 100%, I have no clue :)</p>
<p>Hmm, why is that?</p>
<p>It's supposed to be an all-girls school...so I don't know why they would accept any males</p>
<p>I suspect perhaps it's cross-registered students? I mean, we're allowed to take classes at Wellesley, and the Registrar's Office page says that any MIT student is allowed. Maybe the MIT boys are availing themselves of the opportunity. :)</p>
<p>
[quote]
It's supposed to be an all-girls school...so I don't know why they would accept any males
[/quote]
sons of faculty?</p>
<p>I dunno - maybe Males lacking sexual identity.</p>
<p>Didn't a certain somebody from <em>that</em> school make some very controversial comments in this area?</p>