Do schools still view a girl heavy in math and science as a commodity? I feel like the distinction has lost it’s meaning in the last couple years with so many girls now actively seeking STEM paths because of the preceding movement. As a girl hoping to pursue a science based undergrad and eventually an MD I feel like this path no longer stands out among applicants, for better or worse. Anyone have thoughts on this? Any opinions welcome!
If the STEM field is biology, be aware that biology enrollment is majority women these days.
Engineering and computer science are the STEM fields with the lowest percentage of women.
Simply put, you have a hook at schools which have fewer than 40% women enrolled. Try WPI, RPI etc.
Plenty of women are pre-med these days. I don’t think it will be much of an advantage other than maybe in the more technical type of schools listed above.
As others have said, there are plenty of women in medical-related STEM fields. However, in civil engineering, robotics, mechanical engineering, computer science and other non biological STEM fields, there is still a serious shortage of women.
Yes. A student of mine got into an HYP last year with “advocating for women in STEM” as the central theme of her app. She was qualified in every other way, of course, as well.
Perhaps only important for engineering, unless the school admit students by major. Otherwise, it would hard to distinguish S/M or not at admission and most schools don’t care as it may not affect the overall gender ratio in LSA schools.
Oh, I wasn’t particularly looking to hear about my chances per se, just open to hearing others’ thoughts on the matter in general. Thanks for the replies so far!
Forget engineering, we need more ladies in physics.
Seriously, my physics section class has a men-women ratio of around 26:3. I hope that changes in the coming years.
@marvin100, would be interested in learning more about where the unbalance would most benefit my D17. At this point, she is focused on neuroscience, math and comp sci at mostly LAC’s (Bowdoin, Carleton, Hamilton, Middlebury, Oberlin, Swarthmore, Wesleyan and Williams) with a couple of smaller universities in the mix such as Brown and to a lesser extent Cornell.
She’s scored a 34 single sitting ACT, 1460 PSAT (730/730), 3.8 UW/4.14 W GPA and will have taken six AP’s, including AP Calc AB, AB Comp Sci, AP Bio and AP Physics. She’s also a 4 year Chinese student and wants to continue with it in college. EC’s include varsity and club VB, STEM Club and Girls Who Code.
Suggestions appreciated
Harvey Mudd is a reach, but as s female her odds would be better there than the averages show.
My son and his male engineering friends are definitely in favor of more females applying to engineering programs.
Generally, biology and psychology (which neuroscience is an interdisciplinary combination of) are mostly female, while math and computer science are mostly male, if that is what you are asking.
She’s thinking something more like computational neuroscience
I find it sad that as an overall percentage there are fewer females in Comp Sci than there were when I majored in it 30 years ago. It certainly holds true where I work - the marketing department is almost all female, the Java developers are almost all male.
I was shocked, so was my D17, when we read that in the article that Girls Who Code featured; she would jump to work at a shop like Google.
"interested in learning more about where the unbalance would most benefit my D17. At this point, she is focused on neuroscience, math and comp sci at mostly LAC’s "
In general, it won’t help much at LACs because most of them have more female applicants than male applicants. It will usually help more if you apply to schools with more boys, and if you apply to their engineering program for CS. Lehigh is one that is more LAC like than most engineering schools.
Also Lafayette and Bucknell as LACs with engineering, though I don’t know about their applicant gender ratios.