<p>don't get all worked up</p>
<p>this is just a little article on a thing Summers said that upset some people</p>
<p>now you're getting upset at the people who got upset, and then the people who got upset will get upset back at you, and it's just no good</p>
<p>Ok tetrahedr0n, first of all, it's called an arguement. That's how they work. I try to convince you to see things my way. I guess you've never seen one before.</p>
<p>Second of all, you claim that every person who applies to Harvard is qualified to do the work. One word: no. </p>
<p>As for the reason why women aren't interested in engineering, perhaps it's because people like Summers tell them that they are inferior to men and that their brains can't handle it. But telling someone that they are not good at science simply because they are a women is sexist. I don't know what your definition of sexism is, but Merriam Webster seems to agree with me. </p>
<p>heh, dont worry jono, everything about this thread is meant to upset people. im not particularly upset, just getting into this debate.</p>
<p>sara7246 - i dont know, but since when does arguing involve one saying "this is true. end of story"? i dont call that an argument.</p>
<ul>
<li>when did he claim that their brains cant handle it? yes, there are biological differences which would could explain why statistics are the way they are. this doesnt imply that any particular woman is inferior nor worse than any male at engineering. but then, there are studies that women have a better sense of direction then men? does this mean that men are inferior? that every time such a report about differences between men and women arise, we should all start crying "sexism"? i dont think so.</li>
</ul>
<p>My mom is an engineer. My grandmothers were. And they are excellent engineers at that. However, my sister does not want to be an engineer. Does that mean I think shes inferior? No! </p>
<p>By the way, stop stretching Summers' words ... Did he say that women are not good at science? Take a look at the article. </p>
<p>Okay... I'm reading the dictionary entry. I quote: </p>
<p>"1 : prejudice or discrimination based on sex; especially : discrimination against women
2 : behavior, conditions, or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex"</p>
<p>Does a scientific suggestion match any of these definitions? No. In any case, its more likely that more women will become biologists so as to disprove Summers. As far as I'm concerned, his beliefs will bring more women toward the science fields.</p>
<p>Ah, I forgot the qualified thing. Lets face it - Harvard doesnt take people based on how qualified they are, because a very significant part of the applicant pool is qualified! True, not all are, but few students apply to Harvard that cant handle the work. Same is true of most elite colleges.</p>
<p>Let me re-focus the debate, if just for a moment.</p>
<p>Harvard has 20 thousand applicants each year. And while not everyone is qualified, we know a huge percentage are. We also know that there is huge overlap with Princeton, Dartmouth, Cornell, Brown, MIT, Duke, Columbia, Stanford and others. All those other schools--which are pretty much as demanding as Harvard--find enough qualified admits to thier Engineering programs. QUALIFIED ADMITS--men or women--ARE NOT IN SHORT SUPPLY. There's plenty to go around. </p>
<p>I don't think I'm going out on a limb to say that Harvard probably gets at least 150 very highly qualified men and 150 very highly qualified women every year for Engineering. That's at least 300 out of 20,000 applicants, a scant 1.5 percent of the entire universe.</p>
<p>Before I go on, let me say Harvard probably gets enough qualified men to fill every spot in every program; and, separately, enough qualified women to fill every position in every program. The admissions team, in an effort, to provide a balance chooses ROUGHLY an equal number of men and women to fill out the total universe of admits.</p>
<p>But this does not appear to be true in Engineering. Of about 150 total spots, only 40 to 50 go to women.</p>
<p>If you have any curiosity at all, you have to wonder why. I don't dispute that Harvard can run the game by their own rules, but I wonder why only 30% are women.</p>
<p>Now, here comes Larry Summers. I think he presented ideas at the conference that are likely the prevailing wisdom on the campus. It is unlikely he went to this conference and presented ideas in direct opposition to the general thoughts at Harvard. Why would any University president do that? He just repeated what they say to themselves everyday.</p>
<p>Maybe I'm being hasty, but it seems to me that the Big Boys at Harvard have decided that girls are less likely to be good engineering students and/or good engineers...and so they don't WASTE spots on women.</p>
<p>Why else--when there are so many qualified women--would the ratios be so lopsided?</p>
<p>Seems reasonable to me.</p>
<p>Let's agree on what Summers explicitely said: That the scarcity of female scientists at elite universities may stem from innate differences between the sexes.</p>
<p>Is there not a stereotype that women are not as good at math and science than men? Did Summers not reinforce that stereotype?</p>
<p>He repeated the most common, hacknyed, un-original slander ever lodged against women. I think that why the Bio professor from MIT got up and left, she said if she heard any more she would be SICK TO HER STOMACH.</p>
<p>I am very puzzled by the focus on 'qualified applicants' rather than the best applicants. It seems to me that you believe there is some minimum standard of merit that applicants must achieve in order to be then selected on ethnic background gender socioeconomic status political fashionability or some random basis, without regard to how much particular individuals may exceed that minimum standard. As opposed to simply taking the cream of the crop.</p>
<p>and other schools, all of which have stronger Engineering programs than Harvard, can find more than 40 excellent candidates each year, don't you think Harvard could do a little better...unless there is an institutionalized bias AGAINST women?</p>
<p>Invictus, please interpret this fact for me. You know what my conclusion is.</p>
<p>"During Dr Summers's presidency, the proportion of tenured jobs offered to women has fallen from 36 per cent to 13 per cent. Last year, only four of 32 tenured job openings were offered to women."</p>
<p>Well, if Lawrence Summers believe that women are not good at science (or probable other subjects), do you think that Harvard would want to hire more women tenure professors? He is the boss.</p>
<p>Anyway, I think that this discussion is meaningless. Mr. Summers is a great man. He is a great administrator and can get a lot of donations for Harvard. Do you think that Harvard should do anything about it? Three months for now, no one would remember what he said, and the contributions will keep coming in.</p>
<p>Do we think that any applicants would turn down Harvard because of this incidence? Harvard is the greatest institution in this country. It has the brightest men (men only) who would be our leaders and scientists. No one will turn down the opportunities offered by Harvard and Mr. God AKA Lawrence Summer. End of story.</p>
<p>t1388, thanks for your honest opinion. Could you tell us your stats--SAT, GPA and intended major. Were you admitted EA, or are you RD. In what part of this great land did you grow up. I'm curious. Thanks so much.</p>
<p>No, I am not applying to Harvard. I am too old for that. Anyway, I am not even part of the old White men network, so I am just a Less-than-intelligent-human-being" as per by Mr. God AKA Lawrence Summer.</p>
<p>I just know how this world works. Even Harvard discriminates against women, so what? As long as donations keep coming in, Harvard really does not care what Mr. Summers say. As matter of fact, Applicants do not care either, if they can get accepted, they will all worship Mr. God. LOL.</p>
<p>I appreciate your honesty...but you have to work on that cyncism.
Best of luck to you.</p>
<p>A bit of background about me: I'm a girl. I'm applying to colleges as a physics major. My grandma has a PhD in biology (from Harvard, actually), my grandpa has a PhD in engineering from MIT, my aunt and uncle have PhDs in physics from Cornell, etc. etc. Actually, my grandma and my aunt are both more successful than my grandpa and uncle. And yet I'm not at all offended by what Summers said. </p>
<p>THERE ARE FEWER WOMEN IN THE HARD SCIENCES. Most of my male friends want to be engineers, doctors, architects, engineers, or, hm, engineers. Most of my female friends? Lots of politicians, lawyers, doctors, doctors, biomedical researchers, artists, writers. We've all observed it, and I'm sure there're numbers on it, but I'm too lazy to find them. So let's move on.</p>
<p>Now, with that said, isn't it worth finding out why? And if we're going to find out why, shouldn't we cover all the possibilities? Just saying "oh, it's obviously discrimination (or societal pressures, or whatever you want)" is both intellectually dishonest and potentially harmful, because if it isn't true, then we'll end up creating more harm than good when we try to "fix" a "problem" that may not really exist.</p>
<p>One of the many possibilities that should be considered is that men and women are biologically different (except...oh, wait, we already knew that, huh?). And that doesn't mean that ALL men are better than ALL women at math and science. Take a look at this quote from the New York Times: "Dr. Summers cited research showing that more high school boys than girls tend to score at very high and very low* levels on standardized math tests, and that it was important to consider the possibility that such differences may stem from biological differences between the sexes." He also mentioned that research is increasingly showing that things we used to think were based on socialization are actually more based on genetics.</p>
<p>Isn't this stuff worth checking out? I think so, and I applaud Mr. Summers for having the bravery and honesty to say so. The only thing that disturbs me about all of this is that he was forced to apologize, NOT that he made the comments in the first place.</p>
<p>*Notice: very high AND very low? I find that FASCINATING, and it rings true to me. I'd love to see more research aimed at finding out whether or not it's really true, and, if so, WHY.</p>
<p>Fewer women faculty granted tenure.
Few(er) women admitted to hard science programs at Harvard.</p>
<p>So, while, we all might want to find out the truth, and explore all the options, Summers is acting on his suspicions as if they were already proved true-- he's already leading an administration that is discriminating against women.</p>
<p>That's not the way it works in science or society.</p>
<p>The one know fact in this issue:</p>
<p>"During Dr Summers's presidency, the proportion of tenured jobs offered to women has fallen from 36 per cent to 13 per cent. Last year, only four of 32 tenured job openings were offered to women."</p>
<p>i think summer was reffering more to "innate" differences in interest not in ability, hence his stupid tonka truck story.</p>
<p>what he said was not justified but the media and that mit lady have completely overeacted.</p>
<p>and itsallgood, your argument based on several assumptions without taking the time to look up the statistics is just hilariously flawed (i think this is true, therefore its probly true.....)</p>
<p>The charges against Larry Summers are originating within the Faculty of Harvard and within the Boston academic community. Think they might know something you and I don't?</p>
<p>larry summers isnt telling the admissions ppl who to admit or not, itsallgood
whatever charges are being brought against him are probly not related to undergraduate admissions</p>
<p>itsallgood, I admire your enthusiasm for this topic, but your heroic adherence to an argument totally lacking support is also very amusing</p>
<p>Every year, Harvard admits roughly the same percentage of students into each college. They publish this info twice each year, once when they announce admits and again when they confirm their 80% yield. It's obvious that the leadership of the University decides overall make-up--that's Summers and his cronies--not the clerks and readers in Admissions. In case you didn't know it, the Head of Admissions serves the overall leadership of the University, not vice versa. Anybody that knows anything, would agree.</p>
<p>They have admitted 8% to 9% of all admits into Engineering the last few years, at least since I started paying attention. I call this their QUOTA. If they want more, they would have to get Summers and other leadership to agree to expand the school enrollment. Since Harvard is not allowing the overall undergraduate population to grow, this would mean a decrease in some other school. I would bet that Deans of each school fight hard to keep or increase their numbers. (By the way, less than 2% of applications to Harvard apply undecided.) </p>
<p>Somewhere between 25% and 30% of current engineering students are female. I got this number directly from Harvard 1 year ago. It is my belief--and I have no direct proof--that this is the QUOTA that Harvard DEAS has for female engineering enrollment. How else would you explain it?</p>
<p>So, the question is: "Why 30%?"</p>
<p>I say discrimimination. What say you?</p>