^So do you think this applies to women in engineering? I never had any issues with professors or TAs, even 36 years ago. I’ve had a great career and ran into maybe three jerks the entire time.
So here is an anecdote, DD is at a prestigious University in an advanced math class, her friend asks a question of the Asian male TA, who responds with “you have to use your brain” in front of the class… no, never responded to a question from a male in that fashion. A!so refused to let either of them see quizzes or tests after grading them…
I think young women today are pretty fed up with that treatment. They are a lot more likely to speak up about it and not tolerate it. One of my kids complained to the Dean of Students about a prof who was crappy to the women in various ways. The guy straightened up for the rest of the semester, and retired a year or so later — my D says she knows a few other women who complained as well. Women are speaking up and colleges aren’t putting up with it like they used to.
One of my male colleagues in tech commented to me yesterday about how much of a corporate training he attended last week was focused on sexual harrassment. Employers and collleges know these young women mean business.
That said, the women who apply to these schools definitely self select, far more than young men do. Heck, someone could probably do an analysis of “Chances” and final results threads out here and I bet the women looking at those schools would have higher stats.
My D’s female friends at Mudd were almost all a formidable cohort academically. I don’t know why we are even talking about them somehow being under or less qualified. We see a LOT of overconfident young men out here. The overconfident woman exists, but is much rarer.
Back when Parchment supported such an analysis, I did compare admit rate between men and women, with controls for specific stat ranges and number of AP classes. MIT still had the same ~2.3 to 1 ratio between admit rate between women and men with controls for specific stat ranges as occurred in the overall class, suggesting it’s primarily not just self selection of more qualified applicants. While I do believe there are institutional policies favoring women in admissions decisions to create a reasonably gender balanced class, I also believe the overwhelming majority of admitted women are fully qualified and generally do quite well at MIT and beyond… A report with more specific numbers and details is at http://diversity.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/ReportUndergradWomen.pdf .
Some highlights are women as whole did very well at MIT. They had a slightly higher average GPA than men and notably higher graduation rate than men. Nevertheless, women reported feeling less confident about their abilities than men. Twice as many women reported feeling less capable than their peers than men did. Similarly a larger portion of women said they were not able to learn as well as their peers than men. This attitude worsened over time at MIT, with a much larger difference between genders in senior year than freshman year. This attitude was reflected in first math class selections. Men were more than twice as likely to choose starting out in an advanced version of the first math class (for example, one that emphasizes proofs), and notably less report the class being “too difficult”. There was also notable gender bias in major selection. For example, 70% of architecture majors were women, while ~70% of math and physics majors were men.
Yes they both wrote a scathing reviews of the TA and included the quote. Still it’s an BS issue they shouldn’t have to deal with.
@CU123 I think I know where your kid is in school, and some of that is just “that college”. My D turned that school down because of what she perceived as a Darwinian, sexist environment.
“I think it is also possible that the girls applying to tech-heavy schools might have better stats than the boys, on average, thus the higher admit rate.”
Exactly what we heard at engineering admissions info sessions, including MIT. Boys are definitely more likely to believe they can get admitted without top scores, coursework, achievements. Top tier universities with engineering colleges have been investing in their engineering/CS programs, so girls are more likely to consciously apply/enroll in the engineering college as a member of an overall less quirky student body.
Did not find admission differences with a son and daughter two years apart, very similar stats, both with an interest and passion for their intended engineering discipline.
At WPI & RPI, very high stat boys can still count on merit aid and admission.
@inpatient if you think this is limited to one school you are sadly mistaken (or that other schools are free of this) Sexism and racism are insidious, It only takes very few people to make it a cancer at any institution. Luckily this is the only case she has had so far.
It only takes one, actually. My D attending a school that is known to be welcoming, but her lab TA (an international, if that matters) was a sexist fool: “why are girls even taking this class?” Of course, after the shock wore off, my D took it as a personal challenge and aced the lab grade despite the knucklehead.
Some are worse than others these days.
And the other students are ‘sexist free’ either. My daughter has run into a lot of group project partners who treat her like the secretary.
Read some then skipped posts. The numbers of admissions to a school does not tell you the relative numbers in any given major, or class. And some don’t declare the major until they need to (as in to graduate- there may be rules but…).
I can relate to the robotics coach- I hear even today women physicians get called nurse. Decades ago I would tell a patient I’m Dr. X and he would tell the person he was on the phone with that the nurse was here, sigh. At least sexism in medical schools was presumably killed by the increasing numbers of women in my generation. We had no college or medical school female mentors to speak of- now I see so many women faculty members.
One reason I have lousy typing skills is that I refused to become an expert back in the pre PC days so I wouldn’t be presumed to be the secretary of any professional organization.
If girls have higher GPA’s and graduation rates, then to me that seems that it is the boys that are getting an admissions boost.
I’d be really surprised if CMU or Tufts were a match for anyone. CMU perhaps in one of the schools with a more favorable acceptance rate, certainly not in CS. Tufts admissions are very quirky. They are really looking for fit and will reject lots of top scorers.
Don’t know if this is still true, but a few years ago a student who worked at the MIT admissions office shared that they had done a study of women at MIT and found that once they got to MIT women were doing better on average than the men even though they had lower test scores coming in.
Oops see that @Data10 already posted the study! I should have known!
It’s good the prof corrected his ways. At my school, the Dean of Students has little power over tenured faculty, and only indirect power over non-tenured faculty.
Sometimes the sexism and racism are worse at the more elite universities.
@intparent a PHD student accepted at one elite institution is just as likely to be accepted at another, and I don’t think they write in there app that they are sexist or racist. Totally disagree with your assumptions.
Or maybe it’s just UChicago and Harvard…
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2017/10/20/everyday-struggle-women-math/
Or maybe just Uchicago, Harvard, and Stanford…
“A female computer science major at Stanford: “Floored” by the sexism“. (Google it)
Or…,
Where does your DD go to school I’m sure I can find an article on it there…
The culture of the department is strongly influenced by the PIs and the organization as a whole.
Gender diversity at MIT:
@coolweather increasing enrollment in STEM doesn’t mean that female students don’t have to put up with a bunch of crap…
Article does nothing to address the real issues women face in STEM…