<p>Are admissions standards really slightly more lax/lenient/favorable towards girls than guys?</p>
<p>Completely false. And that's straight from the mouths of several of my friends who work in admissions.</p>
<p>you have MIT confused with Caltech.</p>
<p>The admissions data at the US Dept. of Education's "College Navigator" site suggest that the acceptance rates for women are consistently higher (by a factor of more than two) at top technology schools:</p>
<p>Caltech: Men 13.3 %, Women 29.4 %
MIT: Men 9.1 %, Women 21.0 %
Harvey Mudd: Men 21.0 %, Women 46.6 %
Olin: Men 7.3 %, Women 18.5 %</p>
<p>This could mean that it's easier for women to get in. But it could also mean that the female applicants to these schools are particularly well qualified.</p>
<p>Corbett your latter exlanation seems appropriate for Caltech.</p>
<p>Caltech attracts applicants who are intensely focused on Science
and Math and love research. The kind of girls who rationally would
apply to Caltech are a very small subset of the population of
eligible female applicants.</p>
<p>My guess would be that realistically, both factors play a role.</p>
<p>I've heard that the female applicant pool to tech schools, while much smaller than the male applicant pool, is in fact better qualified on average. So you would expect a higher admissions rate on that basis. </p>
<p>But in addition, if a tech school was evaluating a group of more-or-less equally qualified male and female applicants, then I wouldn't be surprised if the female candidates had an edge. And if so, then this would also boost their admissions rate.</p>
<p>To anyone who might be confused: Caltech's admissions office does not practice affirmative action of any sort in admissions. Women/underrepresented minorities/etc. are not given any sort of edge or preference in admissions over any other group. </p>
<p>Caltech is definitely not "way easier" for girls to get into, or easier at all for that matter. Everyone is judged by the same standards.</p>
<p>I got the feeling that some of the house presidents (who sit on the IHC, and thus get to choose the students on the freshman admissions committee) favor individuals who would like more girls at Caltech. I'm not sure how much that translates into current students sitting on the admissions committee that actively help girls get into Tech. The whole process of students joining the freshman committee should be more transparent IMO.</p>
<p>I think we'd all like more girls at Caltech. I just don't think most of us would like to lower admissions standards to achieve that goal. I know several people who have served on the freshman committee, and I know that they personally agree with that.</p>
<p>Additionally, admissions officers still represent the large majority of decision making.</p>
<p>Don't know if this is true for Caltech, but MIT aims to keep male/female ratio as close to 50/50% as possible. Since the subset of girls that self selects to apply to tech schools is smaller than average, this does make it "easier" for girls to obtain admisssion. I have no clue as to whether that would make them less qualified stat wise as on average girls are better qualified as a group than boys are. Also girls who are Math/science oriented tend to be very strong students.</p>
<p>Listen to LizzardFire, Caltech does not practice Affirmative action!</p>
<p>I looked at fellow admittees who had registered online at that time
on MyMIT from my state. The admittees were all equal in their
lopsidedness. What I mean by that is that each and every one of
the admittes (that had profiles from my state) seemed unique,
colorful and outstanding in their own ways. It did not seem easier for
any gender or for that matter race.</p>