Which top colleges have low female to male ratio for tipy top math students and computer science students? That means for a female student who will be enrolling in classes beyond multivariable calculus when she starts college? Girls who have taken all APs in 11th harder in all five core subjects and have great GPA, ECs, Sets etc
Does college like Caltech, Princeton etc. fit those profle?
At prefrosh weeekend last week, Caltech said that 52 percent of the accepted students for the class of 2022 were women.
That’s awesome! Hopefully their enrolling class will be over half non-male.
Caltech’s incoming classes have been about 45% female for the past several years. Female admits typically have lower yields, probably because they have more choices. So, low 50s admits gets you about 45% female.
You would likely find that the more lopsided ratios for CS and math are at universities with a wide range of majors (Princeton in the OP’s question). They care less about the ratio within specific majors than the overall ratio. Since Caltech, MIT, Mudd, and similar schools have mainly STEM majors, the ratio within CS and math is more balanced.
Depends on your definition of the top colleges. MIT, Caltech , Harvey Mudd have gender balanced admission. Many state schools don’t.
Mudd for sure. They also have a lot of female professors.
Pretty much every one of them, particularly in CS. (There’s a thread on cc about that very major – something like 80% guys.)
Even at top schools like MIT which can attract the best of the best quant women, “females begin MIT taking less advanced math classes than males.”
http://diversity.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/ReportUndergradWomen.pdf
(Hint: it starts in MS where historically more guys take more advanced math and then onto Calc BC; although parity is coming closer.
“Boys also outnumber girls by …nearly 1.5 to 1 on the Calculus BC exam.”
However, this does not necessarily mean that a young woman will be favored in admissions for this reason.
@vhsdad thanks for the info. I have followup questions.
The reason I ask this question that I attended some conference where faculty from some if the school mentioned in this thread said that they have hard time getting these girls who can start ground running from day one and enroll in their top level classes.
@bluebayou that is what I heard same argument that you present when I attended a conference. Daughter is working with some professors in two of these elite colleges in CS departments. She found less diversity in top classes as she was on campus for a summer immersion in two of these elite college.
@rosered55 I understand that part, that is why daughter is multi dimensional kid and brings lot of things to table besides STEM and won awards in non STEM field also. After trying out she was provided fabulous opportunities in computer scince fields.
Carnegie Melon still has an imbalance but they are closing the gap.
Our guidance counselor sent this article to daughter as Harvrad is still struggling in recruiting. I spoke to one on one with Harvey Mud president.she mentioned lack of getting qualified girls interested in CS.
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/2/22/computer-science-department-gender-gap/
It is still not always a very nice environment for a young woman. Both my daughters have struggled with it… D1 coached the robotics team for a few years and during alliances other team reps would walk up to her, ignore the giant COACH badge she was wearing, and ask where the team coach was. Younger D is blonde and super cute, and gets ignored, or has parts yanked out of her hands in STEM class, or is outright questioned as to if she “really is smart”. Both these things fade with time when others figure out how accomplished they are, but then it repeats with a new group. I don’t blame girls for finding socially more aware classmates in other subjects. D2 in particular is a math/CS type but I suspect she’ll be looking at women’s colleges for a better experience.
So few students of either gender have taken classes beyond multivariable calc in high school that I don’t see how you could come up with any meaningful statistics or trends on this point. My daughter had, and then some, and she went to GA Tech undergrad. The circumstances that allowed her to accelerate her math education so radically just don’t occur very often.
^^Agree about the social part. D1 is very pretty blonde girl who modeled during college. D1 was a math & physics double major–even after she won a prize for being the top student is grad quantum mechanics, she was still being told that “ew! no girls allowed in physics classes.” She eventually went into medicine (where she’s in a predominately male specialty and is constantly being asked if she’s a nurse, a scribe, a social worker or, even occasionally, the janitor despite her white coat with Dr. WOWDaughter embroidered on it. )
D2 took multi-variable calc and diff eq in high school, went to college where she majored in math. She joined a sorority (which totally shocked everyone who knew her!!) because she said she needed a break from the overwhelmingly male environment in her upper level math classes.
That just seems like it’s so hard to keep track of and something that’s probably just gleaned from random experiences. How does one even measure that? How many students even start in something not Calc 1 or 2 as first semester freshman?
Honestly, I think it’s safe to assume that a girl with demonstrable advanced math facility and interest gets extra admissions points everywhere, especially at tech schools that can’t pretend they are balancing out CS and math boys with French lit girls. There isn’t any college, including Caltech, that doesn’t aspire to have at least an adequate representation/critical mass of girls in every field. The strongest schools can admit balanced classes, but not necessarily in math-dominated fields, and even to the extent they do they are probably reaching further into the applicant pool on the girls’ side.
The ratios you can figure out with public information won’t really give you meaningful information at all. A relatively high girls:boys ratio may mean that the college is getting lots of high-quality applications from girls, or that it is bending over backward to admit girls, or both. A low ratio may mean that the college is desperate for girls, or it may mean that it has decided it doesn’t need parity.
That said, it would be a terrible mistake to think that it’s not extremely competitive even for math-y girls at the top schools.
All of them. i recall being the only female in my multi-variable calc class.
My daughter is one of only two girls in her AP physics C class. She’s gotten good experience already having fight to do work herself and assert herself. At this point she’s proven herself to her peers but it will definitely start all over again next year at college. The other thing she’s been running into this year is people telling her she only got in places because she’s female. Apparently grades, rigor, ECs, engineering awards, etc… has nothing to do with it.