Do girls have a better chance of getting admitted to a college if they are applying to a school of engineering?
The advantage is in the process of disappearing if it hasn’t already
It is still only 18% of women in engineering.
Threads I have read, as well as the MIT common data set, suggest that up to twice as many female applicants are admitted at some engineering schools than male applicants. It is not clear if all the most qualified women self-select and congregate at a few schools, so it may or may not be “easier” for women to be admitted than men.
This is a separate question than the OP asks, though. I believe it is more difficult for anyone, women or men, to be admitted to engineering colleges since the major is impacted. Among those accepted to engineering colleges, a higher proportion of women applicants are accepted than men applicants. It is probably easier, however, for a girl to be accepted to a college of letters, arts, and sciences than to be accepted to a college of engineering.
There is a similar question regarding Asians. Asians are represented in greater percentage on college campuses than in the general population. People perceive that it is harder for Asians to gain admittance (yet admission rates are greater than proportional population in the country).
Why do you ask?
@seal16, where did you get your statistic? Average from all ranked engineering schools? Certainly dependent on the specific school.
At many engineering colleges or unversities with engeneering programs, women are considered underrepresented minoirites for the purpose of admission to engineering, meaning being a woman is one additonal favorable factor considered. That does not mean you will get in with low stats but it gives a little help. An MIT admissions officer once described it as like having an additonal 20 points on your SAT scores. When you consider that MIT’s average SAT score is about 2250, you can get an idea of what that means.
Also, with one exception, I am unaware of any engineering program where more women are admitted than men. The exception is Smith, a previously all women’s college that now does accept men though only a small number apply, and it has an engineering program. Otherwise, the number of women admitted to any typical engiineering program is lower than the number of men including because the number of women who apply typically make up only about 20% or less of those who apply except for Chemical and Biological engineering where the percentage gets into the mid to high 30% range. Also in looking at figures for admission, you have to be careful at what you are perusing. For example MIT’s common data set will tell you that women make up about 45% of those admitted but that is for the university as a whole and it has colleges other than engineering including arts and sciences and like other universities the number of women in majors in those other colleges can outnumber the males, e.g., as is typical with many colleges, women are the majorioty of biology majors.
I know that USC engineering has a larger % of women then other colleges. I think about 45%. Not sure if it means that it is easier for girls to get in or just more girls apply. During out tour of Viterbi we had more girls then guys. From what I understand highly qualified girls get a small advantage at Caltech, MIT, Harvey Mudd, but not at Stanford or UCLA.
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Look at the common data set. You will see that the percentage acceptance rate at MIT and Harvey Mudd (and elsewhere?) for women is MUCH higher than the percentage acceptance rate for men. The number of female applicants is a smaller pool.
The OP’s question is whether it is easier for a girl to get accepted to an engineering college within a university than to another college within the same university (e.g. would it be easier for a girl to be accepted to Viterbi than to another school within USC; I’m thinking Electrical Engineering rather than Math or something like that). I think that even though girls are URMs in the engineering college, since the major is impacted it would still be easier for a girl to be accepted into a non-impacted college.
It might be irrelevant to the OP question but there is a reason why some major are impacted and some are not. So something to consider for example for UC Berkeley or UCLA for a girl to apply to EECS or CS? Actually both are impacted: one is part of engineering college and the other is LS.
It depends. At Cornell, they do their best to have the engineering be 50/50. Since less girls apply for engineering, the acceptance rate is higher for them. So in some cases, it can help quite a bit.
Basically, what ItsJustSchool said.
Just my bit here, but I remember a UC admissions “calculator” that gave you a probability based on ethnicity, gender, and intended major. Needless to say, I was messing around with it for a while.
From what I saw, women had a higher chance of getting accepted, but only when put against equally ranked applicants. If both were women, then it came to ethnicity.
Don’t take my words too seriously though. For all I know, it could have been complete bull.
What if you’re female AND a URM? Is that an even greater boost?
@NotYetEngineer, I don’t take your words too seriously 
The reason I say this is that UC lost a “reverse discrimination” lawsuit about 10 years ago and is legally prohibited- which they adhere to very strictly- from considering race or ethnicity in admissions decisions. You can bet there are watchdog groups keeping them honest!
I am assuming you mean University of California here. If you are referring to University of Cincinnati, or somewhere else, I would be more inclined to believe you.
Also, admissions depend on whether or not the program is impacted. Majors like Theater at UCLA or Sociology at UCLA or UC Berkeley are impacted, but not so at other UC campuses.
Olin Engineering balances each class with 50% male and 50% female, therefore female applicants have a statistically better chance of gaining admission than males simply due to the imbalance in male/female applications. I think Harvey Mudd has the same 50/50 gender ratio.
Do not forget that women have to be almost as competitive as the men who gets in. No school will take 3.7 GPA girl over 4.0 GPA guy with all other factors considered. Among some 4.0 applicants to the top engineering school girl might win.
@ItsJustSchool
http://dailybruin.com/2014/02/10/ucla-law-students-protest-lack-of-diversity/
The “watchdog” groups criticize the UCs when they show a lack of diversity. Studies have been done to show the UCs do in fact consider race in the application process:
http://www.amazon.com/Cheating-Insiders-Report-Race-Admissions/dp/1457528290
My own anecdotal evidence supports this where black and hispanic students would not only be accepted but given full-ride scholarships to various UCs.
But what you can’t tell is the stats of the women vs. the men in the pool. Women who apply for engineering tend to be fairly self selecting – they have to be pretty strong at math and science to buck the cultural tide that still exists to some extent. Where we see a fair number of young men out here with SATs in the low 600s or ACTs in the mid-20s who want to be engineers, the few posts we see from young women typically have stronger scores. In my own D2’s case, she had 2380 superscored SATs and subject tests of 800 on Math II & Literature. They didn’t need to move the bar down to admit her to Mudd, nor do I expect they did for most of her female peers. She commented to me last week that the women do just fine academically in her classes, too, compared to the men. (And her female roommate has a 3.8 GPA, which is enviable by any standard at Mudd!). Mudd’s incoming classes are around 45% female/55% male, and last year they graduated more women engineers than men – so they aren’t all going into biology,either.
@bomerr, but is this just a way to sell books, or is there a lawsuit brewing? I would be very surprised if this holds up. I would also be surprised about the full rides and acceptance. How do they do that?
I am skeptical, but not doubting your sources. Thanks for pointing me towards this! Fascinating.
@ItsJustSchool‌ From what I understand the UCs are bared from seeing the applicants race on the application BUT if a person writes about their race in the essay (e.g. I am Hispanic) or gives enough background clues (e.g. being from Venezuela or Harlem) then the UCs can determine race.
The watchdog groups criticize the UCs when a URM population gets too small, such as the black students at UCLA law, so they are always under pressure to increase URM enrollment despite the laws.
If you search that author then you can find the study he did and read the info yourself.