<p>How about a hispanic female? :)</p>
<p>I applied to Penn ED. I have a good GPA and rank, but my SAT scores are nothing out of the norm... In only 4 days I'll find out anyways, but still... the wait is killing me!!</p>
<p>Maybe if you share your exact stats with us we can give you a more accurate estimate of your chances. But yes, female URMs are given special consideration when applying to Engineering programs.</p>
<p>How about advancement in subsequent careers (separate questions for women and URM)?</p>
<p>Only if performance is excellence.</p>
<p>Oh ... I guess that is the "right" answer, but could make the profession less inviting to URMs and females.</p>
<p>OK here are my stats:</p>
<p>Rank 1 in a class of 38
GPA: 4.76/5.00
SAT: 660 W, 690 M, 730 CR
SAT II: 640 Physics, 660 Math II, 780 French
Toefl: 673 paper-based
I have 2 National Math Olympics gold medals
and participation in several National Science Fairs
My ECs, recs, and essays are pretty good overall,
but I imagine there's lots of other applicants who
are equally strong.</p>
<p>What do you think?</p>
<p>I don't know much about UPenn but those look like pretty good stats. The valedictorian status will help. And not to mention you are a double minority in engineering. We need more people like you. Good going. Which engineering you thinking about?</p>
<p>I second IlliniJBravoEcho. You definitely have very impressive credentials. I'd say that Penn is still a bit of a reach, but you have a good shot nevertheless.</p>
<p>Here is one myth about women in engineering.
Women are very self selecting about colleges, they do not apply to a college they do not think they can get into . Hence they higher admit rates.
men, on the other hand, apply everywhere, even if they think they cant get it. </p>
<p>This is one thing that gives woment the whole they get in at higher rates than men do... yeah, its not pretty.</p>
<p>Thanks Alexandre and IlliniJBravoEcho for your encouragement! I'm thinking about Industrial or Chemical Engineering, I really like both!!</p>
<p>I know that's definetely true about women being much more selective about where they apply. I know Penn is still a reach but I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Wednesday at 7:00 pm (that's when online decisions are posted).</p>
<p>Anyways, since I didn't want to rely on Penn solely, I already completed 7 other RD applications to:</p>
<p>Washington at St Louis
Bucknell
Lafayette
Rice
Univ of Miami
Rochester Inst. of Technology
Worcester Polytechnic Inst.</p>
<p>What do you guys think about this list?? If you have any other suggestions please please tell me! :) And thanks a lot for your help!</p>
<p>Your list looks good! (Coming from another female engineer, but I'm applying to different colleges). Penn and Wash U are reaches, but both are realistic. Rice is a slight reach or a good match, not sure exactly what your chances are there. Bucknell and Lafayette are both safe matches- it could go either way but I'd be surprised if you don't get in. Miami, RIT, and WPI are safeties.</p>
<p>I know a bit about Rice, and WPI if you have questions.
I applied to both but ended up at Olin. (the most gender balanced of all egineering schools)
If you need help or have questions, Im only a year ahead, but I'm around and more than willing to give advice (this goes for all females in engineering.... dude, we need more... I hate going to the only engineering school thats anywhere near 50/50 )</p>
<p>Yes, you read that right. </p>
<p>Statistically speaking, women who apply to engineering programmes have higher GPAs and SAT math scores. </p>
<p>Huh? But everyone says....</p>
<p>Yes, there are fewer women who apply, but those who do apply are more qualified than the men who apply. Women who are accepted into engineering likewise have better stats than their male counterparts. Social scientists think that women need the validation of the high stats to think they can handle the curriculum, ask for recs with a straight face, and to believe that they have a shot - while men will just apply because engineering is so manly and macho or whatever.</p>
<p>Generally, people see the lower numbers of women in engineering and assume that it's easier to get in - but the mistake is in conflating two different phenomena: size of applicant pool and quality of applicant pool. Fewer women, yes; but those that are there are more qualified, on the average, than the men. </p>
<p>Finally, women engineers tend to have higher grades than their male counterparts.</p>
<p>Sorry ariesathena that may be true for some (more like Ivies) but believe me it's not. If we were looking at a college in general then yes I'd agree but women are (and always will be with the male-dominated tech industries) an underrepresented minority. This is the first time I think you're not only wrong but very wrong.</p>
<p>Chemical engineering is actually a very woman dominated field but I've talked to several girls in my major (freshmen year when stats kind of meant something still) who were perturbed with the lower scores other girls got and got in. That also may make it harder with most girls becoming chemEs (IE & GE too) it may make that harder but other engineering majors want girls DESPERATELY. For girls who want engineering there is quite a disparity of scores. I know quite a few girls who were very qualified for engineering but chose not to. (Which is fine but I'm just saying that because girls statistically have higher scores than guys doesn't mean all of them apply to engineering [very few actually in comparison to guys, Which is why college end up playing this: who would you rather accept? Joe Schmoe 30 ACT, 25th in class, good recs or a girl who has done a lot for her school, 27 ACT, 10th in class. I'd rather accept the girl because you get so few and retain even less and this one is a hard-worker] and even if the numbers were closer to even (65:35, or even 50:40, like maybe chemE) just because girls have higher scores doesn't mean they're the ones applying. It'd be a good chance guess but I don't think that is necessarily true.</p>
<p>Guys apply because they have good grades and are smart. Girls are actually thinking about it. I've met more girls than guys who actually wanted to do engineering, regardless of whether they are staying in it or not. A guy applies to engineering more often for the wrong reasons than girls do. If you're a girl it's any easy anyday decision that you'd throw around (like guys often do and hear about more than girls) to apply for a engineering major, ever. I'd take a poll of high school girls who are in all honors and ever considered [like at all, even if they are in the top math and science classes] engineering and all guys with the same question. You tell me who wins. Even parents telling them to do it counts. My sister gave up on science quicker than I did. My mom was actually more upset about that but my dad shrugged it off. I imagine the reaction when I said I want to go into film. Bad.</p>
<p>Also Aries, I think you also overlooked the fact that she is Hispanic. As unfortunate as it is to say that you will be getting in on race. I know Hispanic guys who got in with very low scores to U of I! To counter racist anti-AA-mongers there are just as many I know that scored highly like myself and didn't need the program to benefit. I know one in particular with a 24 going into EE (one of hardest!) while I met a Caucasian (I did two incoming freshmen programs were I was pared up and one was minority related and the other was not) who had 27 and was too scared to apply to EE so he applied to AgE. If that isn't fair I don't know what is. Unfortunately until colleges decide to accept based on economics and being underprivileged and in a bad situation (town's income below poverty level, bad school etc . . .) as opposed to Color/Race, that's the way it is going to be. Sad but true.</p>
<p>Yes, and the earth is flat. Please back your claims with statistics. Anecdotes are useless, and absent of any merit in this argument.</p>
<p>A few measures that may affect female enrollment in engineering, valid according to Steven Pinker, a leading psychologist or psychometrician at Harvard:
Men are more likely to be geniuses and morons (implying that all top schools with 50-50 ratios put the proverbial thumb on the scale to some degree for women, or use other criteria that compensate for the disparity at the tail end on the right).
Men perform better in certain mathematical areas relevant to math and the sciences, specifically on aptitude tests with high levels of predictivity.
Men tend to be more interested in math and the sciences.
<a href="http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/debate05/debate05_index.html#p1%5B/url%5D">http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/debate05/debate05_index.html#p1</a></p>
<p>However, the female engineering applicant pool may deviate from these tendencies. </p>
<p>"racist anti-AA-mongers" yes, brand your targets so that you are absolutely morally superior, and your opponents vile racists. Here is a definition of racist: someone who hates all of that race. Most AA opponents are not at all racist, by that definition.</p>
<p>Label me sexist for not "knowing" why sex should matter in selection.</p>
<p>at olin I hear that women have a three times greater acceptance rate than men.</p>
<p>OMG! I'm so nervous right now... Penn ED decisions coming out in about 40 min!!</p>
<p>sroll, Olin's statistics seem unusually disparate: Their 25-75 percentiles for math are 710-800, with a 23% acceptance rate. Caltech with a 20% acceptance rate is 750-800. MIT's acceptance rate is 16% with 730-800 in math. Some schools are more forgiving than others. It seems in this case that it Olin, MIT, Caltech are, in that order. The most apt comparison to Olin is probably Cooper Union, but I didn't find statistics for just the engineering school.</p>
<p>The aforementioned schools practice as they do the admissions policies necessary to achieve what they want, be it the smartest kids possible, a collaborative, fresh atmosphere, and a mix of the two.</p>
<p>I got in!! I got in!! I got in!!</p>
<p>wow I can't believe it!!! :) yesssssss!</p>
<p>Congrats, mate! By the way, what are you thinking of majoring in?</p>
<p>:)</p>