This: it would be a terrible mistake to think that it’s not extremely competitive even for math-y girls at the top schools.
I don’t think my daughter got any special consideration from the school in admissions. Any boy with her stats would have been admitted too, and if they really wanted to attract women they’d do as other STEM schools do and give additional merit money just for women (Embry-Riddle has extra money for females, RPI, WPI and some others admit to giving more merit to women; unfortunately, not daughter’s school and she got what the boys with her stats got).
A few years ago Colorado School of Mines admitted women just because they were women with a little lower stats and it didn’t work out very well. I think they admitted about 10% more women that year but many didn’t make it the entire year because they just weren’t suited to the academics of the school. Who told me that? The sorority women who had expanded their houses to accept more women and then had them not stay through the entire year. Lesson learned, you can’t mold students to the school just because you want it to work out…
Yes, the CDS prints lists admit rates by gender. Some examples are below, using IPEDS, which allows reports for larger numbers of colleges. Highly selective colleges often try to create a reasonably gender balanced class, which leads to tech colleges often having a higher admit rate for women, and to a lesser extent LACs often having a higher admit rate for men.
Caltech – 15% Women, 5% Men
Harvey Mudd – 20% Women, 9% Men
MIT – 13% Women, 6% Men
Kenyon – 19% Women, 37% Men
Pomona – 8% Women, 12% Men
Amherst – 12% Women, 16% Men
Following up on what @Ynotgo stated, I’m guessing that Berkeley has around a 50/50 ratio for the school, but I hear the EECS program is a sausage fest, 90/10. Poor gender ratio was one of the reasons my son took certain schools off his list.
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.
Given how demanding the core is at Caltech, I don’t think many kids of either gender are skipping over lower level classes.
- Second question wgich is very difficult to know, will aprricaite input. How many females are admiited that have already taken multi variable calculus in high school, and have experience in higher level computer science. These girls can enroll in the higher level classes and compete and keep it up with boys.
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.
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It seems like they are closing it very quickly:
https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2018/march/record-admissions.html
Here are some statistics on the number of women at 5 elite universities
These are the percentage of bachelors degrees awarded for a math major to women Harvard 20 per cent MIT 28 per cent Yale 26 per cent Princeton 15 per cent Brown 27 per cent. The percentage of phd women students tends to be 5 to 10 per cent lower for each institution
These are the percentage of male math majors who took MV calculus in HS Harvard 72 per cent MIT 66 per cent Yale 79 per cent Princeton 66 per cent Brown 50 per cent.
As you can see math majors tend to enter these schools very well prepared
This is true among selective colleges. However, I’d expect you to find even more lopsided ratios in colleges that are not as selective, such that colleges have little ability to shape their class. HYPS… type colleges usually are ~50% male and ~50% female overall, but there are huge differences in individual majors. I majored in EE at Stanford, which is Stanford’s most lopsided engineering major. It was common to have just ~2 female students in major specific classes. Many colleges publish gender ratios by major. You can find numbers for Stanford at https://registrar.stanford.edu/everyone/enrollment-statistics/enrollment-statistics-2016-17 , a summary of which is below for undergrad : I doubt you’d find better results at HYP…, but as mentioned above, you are likely to find more balanced ratios among individual majors at selective colleges with a higher percentage of tech majors, such as MIT.
Math – 83% Male
Physics – 78% Male
EE – 77% Male
CS – 67% Male
English – 71% Women
Environmental Science – 71% Women
Human Biology – 76% Women
International Relations – 79% Women
@jhs It is all probability. Daughter did not choose this path based on game theory. Her achievements speaks what she has done. She was given terrific chances outside of classroom (total free summer programs) to advance in multiple fields as mentors were happy to guide her.
What do you mean by that, sorry I did not understand that. Can you explain. Thanks
In reality my daughter was given a break by many many people. Without their support this all would have not been possible. Mentors who took time off and taught her one on one. who were instrumental in her success. Without them she would not been advancing. The credit goes to school teachers, guidance counselors, faculty at top schools, professional who taught her so much much more.
@ultapradesh I expect you misunderstood Maria Klawe. Klawe will say it is a challenge — but you missed the part where she says Muddhas been very successful at getting past this problem.
Mudd is on the forefront of getting women to major in all the “hard” STEM subjects. (They have few bio majors). Around 50% of the incoming class is female, and that is what they graduate as well. The last few years more than 50% of the engineering and physics grads have been female (my D was one of them). She had many female friends who were CS or math majors. Mudd has made a serious effort in this area with excellent results. If your D has the stats, visit the campus and see.
One reason my D picked Mudd is because of an older female prof she met at accepted student days — my D really liked both the class gender split nearly 50/50 and the female profs. And she found it wasn’t just talk, she has quite a posse of women friends at Mudd.
Lots of schools bemoan that it can’t be done. Mudd has done it. My kid turned down some higher ranked schools for this reason, and was really happy at Mudd.
@intparent @vhsdad Mudd is a great school which has tapped into merit aid/need based aid if I am not wrong. That way they attract lot of kids like mine who are in donuts whole based on family income.
If you look out of 2828 they admitted 284 men (10%). For female they admitted 345 of 1250 (27.6%).
In addition early decision is 81/504 kids. (16% rate).
I do not want to muddy the waters more. One question that does not matter for FP student where they go as all these colleges are extremely good. But for middle class kids, there is a big price difference what you pay say at different colleges even among elites colleges.
Caltech men 276 out of 5063 (5.5%)/. Woen 277 out of 1792 (15%). Yeild for woman is less than 50% of admitted.
@rosered55 Number does not lie, need I say more.
MIT:
M: 757/13131 (5% admit), W: (754/5889) 12% admit.
No individual girl will get into MIT merely because she is a girl. Your daughter appears to be highly qualified. I’m sure she will get into a good college or university because she has high qualifications. I think it’s fine to encourage her to apply to MIT and other colleges and universities with courses that fit her interests.
My had a 2380 SAT (out of 2400) and SAT subject tests Math II 800 and Lit 800. They aren’t admitting unqualified women if that is what you are trying to say. It is pretty self selecting high quality applicant pool, especially among the women applying.
hahahah you are being a lawyer. I am not saying that mere being a girl will get you admitted. I am saying being a competitive female applicant your chance goes up. And top of that if you have that and more leadership etc. in non STEM field to back up, your chances improve further.
Of course being competitive will increase a student’s chances: girl or boy! Maybe your child will get into MIT, maybe she won’t. I’m wondering what you’re trying to establish here.