<p>From my personal and maybe skewed observation. It's easier for girls in engineering not only for admissions but also for internship/jobs. I went to a top 10 engineering school. Women are underrepresented there. I'll refrain from speaking about the abilities of the female engineers, because it's arbitrary. While most of the female engineering students would get summer internship, even ones that makes Cs and Ds. However, only the top male engineering students manage to snatch up summer internships. Imply what you will for that situation.</p>
<p>It works both ways. I once went on a group interview at a fairly large company (maybe a billion in sales today). I overheard the managers talking about us when I went to the men's room, and one manager said to the other "We've got to hire that chick. Did you see the rack on her? Who cares how she interviewed." She got the job (I never told her the story). </p>
<p>Anyway, she started working there, and immediately had trouble building relationships. See, the managers were all men, and their after-hours social events were either at a strip club, a sports bar, a golf course, or a the local high school football game (it was a pretty rural location). She didn't attend when they went to the strip club, couldn't play golf, and didn't know enough about sports to keep up with the conversation at those events. Plus, people would hit on her at the social events making her feel awkward. At the end of the semester, she didn't get a full time offer, while most of the men who were in the "good ol' boys club" did. </p>
<p>So being a woman both helped (get an internship) and hurt (getting a full time job).</p>
<p>Of course, it didn't matter. She finished near the top of the class, went to work for a Fortune 500 company, left two years later to get a Stanford MBA, and now is a big shot in the San Francisco business world.</p>
<p>It sort of sickens me that this story was just told as a commentary on that woman's career and how being a woman ended up 'not helping her', and not as a commentary on the ponderous quantity of harassment that she was subjected to. That <em>she</em> had trouble "building relationships"...? I hope that you were being slightly sarcastic (and I rather sense that you were)... I'm glad you think she turned out all right, but I'm sure that for everything you saw, there was plenty that you didn't see, and when those sorts of things happen to you and begin to pile up, they become more and more difficult to ignore. I hope she's doing well at ignoring them.</p>
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I was a CS undergrad and some of the girls I had in my groups were the best programmers Ive ever met. They just tend to be quite different than the other girls who study communications and psychology.
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<p>How so?</p>
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It sort of sickens me that this story was just told as a commentary on that woman's career and how being a woman ended up 'not helping her', and not as a commentary on the ponderous quantity of harassment that she was subjected to.
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<p>Back then, it wasn't seen as that "bad". People held business meetings at strip clubs all the time. It wasn't until the 90's that people started realizing it wasn't a good idea.</p>
<p>Olin recruitment statistics also show a significant Self Selection tendancy. There were NO women in the bottom 1/3 of Olin apps two years ago. Therefore the percentage of acceptance for women was higher.</p>