Yes, I think there is self-selection in the female applicant pool, so the apparent preferences being given are likely not as high as they may seem from the numbers, though I don’t doubt they exist.
In the past, there has certainly been an element of self-selection. DW graduated from a top school with a degree in mechanical engineering about 30 years ago. The women in her graduating class were almost all near the top of the class. Her explanation was that it was not worth being a female engineer unless you were really good. Even then, most of her classmates left engineering over the next decade. (DW went on in CS and is a systems engineer.)
OP- Whether gender is a hook in engineering admissions depends on the particular engineering major. In biomed and chemical engineering, the rate is usually the same for women and men. In mechanical engineering, being a woman is definitely a hook. My youngest is a second year ME major and she did very well in admissions two years ago. I definitely believe her gender and major helped her even at schools where they don’t admit by major. She had to indicate her intended major on the common app.
I suggest you check the college profiles on the American Society of Engineering Education. They break down enrollment by gender for each engineering major. It has been my experience where there are few females in the particular majors that it helps in admissions. Here is the link: http://www.asee.org/papers-and-publications/publications/college-profiles
Also check with the particular college if they have a women recruitment team or a person assigned in the admission’s office to women recruitment. If so then that usually indicates gender is a hook for engineering. Also check news releases for colleges. If you see things lke “x college is trying to increase the number of women” then you know it is a hook at that school. I also believe the Society of Women Engineers might have some of the information that you seek. They just had their national conference this past weekend. Look at the list of colleges in attendance at the conference because those college were there specifically to recruit women for their colleges.
Good luck.
@sbjdorlo, I called myself mathmom because my son was a math guy not because I was. I loved math, but did not actually progress that far! At any rate that’s my interpretation. If an engineering school succeeds in having something better than a 70/30 ratio it’s because they are admitting women with lower stats. Since MIT found that women were outperforming men with the same stats, I actually think that’s a perfectly reasonable decision for an engineering school to make - it looks like preferential treatment, but in terms of outcomes really isn’t.
I do think it’s quite possible that the women who apply to MIT are already stronger than average, and quite possibly stronger than the male pool. I don’t think that info is possible to find. That’s not unusual for tech schools. The year before my son applied RPI’s acceptance rate was over 60% yet the average SAT score was in the high 600s. They had a really strong pool, unfortunately a lot of kids turned them down for places like MIT which were even more desirable (especially since they were able to get that 50/50 M/F ratio.)
And anecdote isn’t data, but I do know a young woman who attended RPI and they not only gave her great merit money, but they upped it completely unexpectedly along the way. They really, really wanted her to stay and be happy about being there.
“Take a look at MIT’s data. What can we make of that? It seems obvious women get a huge boost…and yet, I know of more than a few amazing young ladies with high stats, particularly in math/science, that were not admitted. There is no “one size fits all” for women.”
They don’t get as much as you think. This is a complex issue.
The admit rates are higher in part because girls don’t apply to MIT or Cal Tech lightly. The ones that do try, really have their s**t together.
Second, I believe the admitted girls actually have better grades and test scores that the boys, but weaker tech ECs.
It definitely is a plus, but not as much as it appears.
Regarding the amazing girls you know that got rejected, often MIT and other top schools just blow it in the Adcom. Remember, they have a pile of paper, but never met any of these kids. This also drives many alumni interviewers crazy. They fire off many, “How could you possibly pick kid B over kid A ?” notes. The alums can’t believe it either. Lol
It’s interesting to see in the Cornell graphic linked in post #10 how M-F ratios have changed over time. In 1980, Cornell had 4,056 applicants to its engineering school. It admitted 1,280 of them (31.6% admit rate) and 603 enrolled (47.1% yield). Of those, 3,331 (82.1%) of the applicants were male, and 1,007 males were admitted (30.2% admit rate for males). Only 725 applicants were female (17.9%), of whom 273 were admitted (37.7% admit rate for females). So in 1980, women had only a relatively small statistical advantage in admission to Cornell engineering, but Cornell engineering was overwhelmingly male (80.7% of enrolled freshmen) because so many more men than women applied.
By 2015, applications to Cornell engineering had ballooned to 11,638–a 287% increase over 1980–while the number of enrolled freshmen grew much more slowly, to 746, a 24% increase over the same period. There were 8,623 male applicants in 2015 (74.1% of the total), but fewer males were admitted—772, or 23.3% fewer male admits in 2015 than in 1980. As a consequence, the admit rate for males dropped to 9.0%. Meanwhile, the number of female applicants increased by 416% to 3,015; of those, 801 or 26.6% were admitted. So now the female admit rate is roughly 3 times the male admit rate—not primarily because a higher percentage of female applicants are admitted now than in 1980, but because with a rising tide of both male and female applicants, Cornell engineering can achieve rough gender balance by accepting a far smaller percentage of its male applicants than in did in the past.
Notice that Cornell engineering’s applicant pool is still overwhelmingly male (74,1% in 2015, down only slightly from 82.1% in 1980). But only 49.1% of those accepted and 51.9% of those who enroll are male. So at Cornell, female engineering applicants have a decided statistical advantage in admissions. But I wouldn’t extrapolate anything from this about the situation at other schools.
At a minimum, it will reduce your dissadvantage for being female.
Most colleges have more female applicants, and many try to balance it out by admitting a higher percentage of males.
Thanks for breaking down the Cornell statistics so thoroughly, @bclintonk. This was helpful.
For anyone who wants to offer an opinion on this specific student, should she submit only her ACT? And should she explain about running out of time on the reading, or is that a big no-no? This is for a specific school that requires either SAT or ACT, but doesn’t do score choice. My thought is to submit only ACT even with the 23. She is retaking ACT, but is applying early to one school. Total longshot, but c’est la vie.
SATs:
Oct. of Junior year: CR 590 M 670 W-610 1870
Mar of Junior year CR 680 M 680 W-620 1980
Oct. of Senior year CR 650 M 680 W 640 1970
ACT:
Sept. of senior year: Eng. 32 Math 33 Reading 23 Science 35 Writing 26 (31 composite)
Thanks!
Plenty of kids struggle with time on these tests. Speed is part of what they are testing. I’m not sure what you would accomplish by saying she ran out of time.
Good point. It’s just such an anomaly of score considering her CR on the SAT was 680. Would you still suggest only sending ACT?
She’s applying to engineering schools, I wouldn’t worry about submitting just the ACT. It is what it is, can’t be changed and plenty of people run out of time on the reading or science. When my D applied to certain schools we were told that they were mostly looking at the math and English scores.
Wouldn’t all scores act and sat be on her HS transcript? I remember our guidance counselor told us not to obsess over which scores to submit, that they are going to look at the highest score. Remember that they read so many applications and only have so much time so they are going to look at the highest score and move on to the other parts of her application.
To answer your question, yes women get an advantage in admission to engineering schools. But tell her that engineering is not easy, it’s a lot of work. And in many majors you will have classes that are mostly male, many women gravitate to chemical or bio or enviromental. D is a mechanical and she had classes that only had a couple of women in it, that many projects she was the only women. And now that she’s working, it’s mostly men in her department.
Engineering is a great field, but it can be a slog and as in every difficult major, you need to love it. Don’t do it because you get an admission advantage but because you can see yourself doing that for s living.
ACT and SAT scores do not appear on our high school transcript. If they did, I’d go complain. With score choice and score optional colleges there is no reason for the high school to sabotage those options.
I agree that engineering can be a slog, but most kids, and especially girls I suspect, don’t have the experiences to know if they are going to like it or not until they try it. On the surface I should have liked Computer Sceince. My brothers both did. I took one course and knew it wasn’t for me.
I’m going to have to ask if “girl/woman” is one of those fifty new Facebook checkboxes.
All of traditional engineering disciplines at U.S. universities are tough. A student needs to have a tremendous interest in the field, superb study habits and a whole lot of determination. Fortunately, there are many schools who assist women undergraduates in this regard. Being a woman applicant at a STEM school that wants to augment its female population is certainly a plus for an applicant. Great schools like Rose Hulman, Missouri Science & Technology University, South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute really do a lot to encourage women to apply, and then offer them great support when women arrive on campus as Freshmen.
Re: running out of time- OP, you have a kid at MIT so I don’t need to tell you how much reading is involved. Speed really counts. If running out of time was a one-shot deal, then I wouldn’t be concerned. But if this young woman consistently reads at a lower rate than her peers, she’s not doing herself a favor by applying to the uber-admit schools anyone- whether she ends up in math or engineering.
Don’t over-estimate the boost she will get from being female. I think a woman interested in engineering/math/science gets a boost at Smith, Bryn Mawr, Wellesley. I think a woman interested in those fields at the traditional math/science schools may not need the same depth of science related EC’s. But the math SAT score is a huge red flag for a math intensive program- you need to find out why. She’s taken it three times and never broke 700?
I’m not feeling the engineering thing here. And on the subject of speed- it really counts. Processing time, reading time, study time, completing problem-sets- speed/accuracy is the difference between sleep and no sleep at college in a rigorous engineering program.
“don’t have the experiences to know if they are going to like it or not until they try it.”
That’s the challenge. CC focuses on admit possibilities, but adcoms can be looking at the college four-year potential.
The strategy isn’t “Where do they give a boost to engineering wannabe gals with the right backgrounds?” It’s how will X or Y view this gal with no experiences (beyond presumably good grades in math and science classes) and see her as as a good choice?. Can she even adequately complete any app questions about why this major or an engineering supp?
Or you go to plan B.
I don’t think the 680 is the main problem.
Why anybody needs any hook if going to engineering. It does not matter where you go to college for engineering. Most engineering firms hire locally anyway. Attend at any college that accepts you, no need to attend at expensive Ivy / Elite. My H. is an engineer, most of our friends are engineers and I was in engineering until I switched to something that I really liked - CS
Does anyone else feel like a bookie figuring out the spread?
D is applying to a variety of colleges for ME, and thanks to the ASEE link earlier in the thread, I know she will very much be in the minority. Except for one or two, I know she has an excellent chance at admittance. My big hope is the desire to increase women shows in their aid packages.
I guess it will all be revealed in a few months time.
Miami- you do realize that many engineers don’t actually work for an engineering firm? Boeing employs tens of thousands of engineers. If they only hired locally they’d have to shut facilities- there aren’t enough local engineers who meet their specifications. Cisco, Honda, Siemens, Caterpillar, Pfizer, BP, Apple- if these companies ONLY hired locally they’d all be out of business.
I’m sure your husband has had a fine career, but many engineering grads don’t want to work for the local engineering firm. Would your D the doctor have picked her specialty by JUST looking at what the local community hospital offered??? Great if someone wants to be a pediatrician. Very limiting if someone is interested in another kind of training only offered at a large academic medical center.