<p>Piper, </p>
<p>“Top Engineering and Science school in the world.”</p>
<p>I have to disagree. The words Engineering and Science should be removed. ;)</p>
<p>Much2learn, I will accept your amendment :P</p>
<p>I have to say, while we are waiting, that my hope is that this is the year that they finally decide to admit as many young ladies as young men. I do not believe that with every other college in the country having a surplus of well qualified young ladies, that MIT can not find the additional 100 or so female applicants that are fully qualified. And by “Fully qualified” I do not mean “minimally qualified.” I mean better than the MIT averages for grades and scores, and with solid ECs. It just can’t be true that the best university in the country can’t find 550 or so girls that are capable of holding their ground with the best boys out there. It just isn’t possible. Especially when you know that SAT scores over predict college performance for boys and under predict performance for girls. Additionally, the last data I saw showed that graduation rates and average grades at MIT were higher for girls than for boys, which further suggests that there is no reason to continue the practice of accepting more underperforming boys and fewer of the over performing girls.</p>
<p>I’m sorry much2learn, but you’re severely underinformed about the bifurcation in math/science ability between males and females in the US. It’s well known that MIT practices a sort of affirmative action for females - just compare its nearly 1 to 1 M-F ratio to Caltech’s 2 to 1. That difference is sort of ridiculous. </p>
<p>To take just one example: the Putnam exam is the premier math contest for undergraduates. Virtually all notable math majors in the US take it, and many many students from MIT do extremely well on it. Last year, over 80 MIT students placed in the top 500 of the exam. How many were girls? No more than two or three - and most likely zero. In fact, Putnam had to make a special prize for girls due to this disparity.</p>
<p>I personally know over a dozen girls who got into MIT, and all of them were objectively less qualified than many guys I know who were rejected.</p>
<p>Sure, there are many intelligent girls out there, but there are simply many more boys who are better. Please don’t blame me for this reality - blame American society for stigmatizing females in science and associating STEM field with males.</p>
<p>The ultimate kicker: female acceptance rates for MIT are much higher than males - often twice as much.</p>
<p>It is true that there are higher acceptance rates for girls, but that is not relevant. </p>
<p>As you must be aware, girls take applying to MIT very seriously on average, while boys are more likely to “just take a crack at it”. That results in a girls pool that is just stronger overall. </p>
<p>I am not aware of the number of math prizes, but even if true, I do not accept that it is because the girls do not have the ability. If you are correct, and girls do not have the ability, and many substandard girls were already accepted, that should clearly appear in graduation rates and grades. Why doesn’t it?</p>
<p>I would ask you to agree with me that if, in fact, the girls are graduating from MIT at higher rates, and achieving better average grades, those facts would strongly suggest that you are actually being too critical of girls in admissions and too easy on boys. If so, why continue to admit 22% more boys than girls?</p>
<p>You’re placing too much emphasis on grades and graduation rates. The former is just a measure of how hard you’re willing to work, not about how “smart” one is. In fact, graduate school, grades are by far the most trivial and least useful measure of one’s ability. This holds at MIT undergrad too. For example, research is far more important, and you’ll see that men dominate that field, rather women.</p>
<p>I can assure you that in any science field - math, physics, chemistry, biology, and so on - men win the lion’s share of prizes. Of course, competitions and prizes and such are not ultimate indicators of ability, but certainly are far better than mere grades. I certainly do not agree that girls’ higher average grades and graduation rates imply that more girls should be admitted. Take a look at it from the admissions perspective - why doesn’t MIT just accept everyone with a 4.0 GPA?</p>
<p>I am talking about the grades they earn at MIT, not high school grades.</p>
<p>I have never before heard of an affirmative action pool, where the group supposedly benefitting, then proceeds to consistently earn better grades and graduate at higher rates. That strongly suggest that performs better and were in reality the only thing they were given was a playing field that was less tilted against them than it had been previously. </p>
<p>There are a lot of reasons that boys may appear to have a better application that are not substantive. Boys are more likely to enhance statements about what they actually did, girls more likely to be modest. Teachers are more likely to highlight achievements of boys over the achievements of girls with equal or higher achievements. I saw one of the boys statements about his number of APs in the statistics string was interesting. “I wrote down 12 5’s”. Is that suggesting that he doesn’t really have them? I do not know, and no one checks for honesty. It just sounded odd to me.</p>
<p>I understand that boys have done a lot of great things, and I am not suggesting that they should be banished from the campus. All I am saying is that if the boys consistently can’t match the girls on average grades or graduation rates once they are at MIT, then I think it is a fair discussion to raise about why the underperforming group continues to receive 22% more seats in each incoming class, at the expense of the outperforming group that is supposedly benefitting from “affirmative action.” </p>
<p>Maybe the boys are just too busy winning Nobel prizes and math olympiads to be bothered with grades? Or maybe they are just jerking off, when they should be studying. I don’t know, but it is a fair question to raise.</p>
<p>You don’t get my point, don’t you? I’m saying that grades are a terrible indicator of ability, and that just because girls are, say, more diligent than guys in completing coursework (and that’s not even taking into account the average difficulty of courses between genders), it doesn’t mean that girls are somehow better than boys and that more girls should be admitted. </p>
<p>Your point about how boys present themselves better is at best unsubstantiated, and at worst, utterly false. Just to comment on the 12 5’s guy: he obviously did get 12 5’s, he simply didn’t list them all. Moreover, nobody cares about AP scores, since they’re not sent in. It’s well known that admission officers don’t place much weight, if any, on them.</p>
<p>So, in essence, all of your talk about grades and stuff is completely moot. Since when did grades become the end-all indicator of ability? Try to stop being so fixated on mere grades. Do we remember Richard Feynman because he got good grades in his classes at MIT? I.M Pei? Anyone can get great grades, but not everyone can do great things.</p>
<p>
Sure, but there’s been quite a bit of research in the sociology of science recently that indicates that 1) women need to be better than men in order to be offered a job in science, and 2) papers with a female primary author need to be better than papers with a male primary author in order to be accepted at comparable journals. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t go so far as to say that women in science are better than men in science, but I think much of the evidence that men are better than women is contaminated by subtle, but pervasive, gender discrimination, both in science and in society at large.</p>
<p>Hi Mollie,</p>
<p>To be clear, I am not saying women are better. I am saying that I believe they are just as good.</p>
<p>I am just asking whether there actually is clear evidence that the men really are better and deserving of 22% more places at the table than women are accorded, in light of the evidence that we see, or is it an anachronism?</p>
<p>I find it interesting that originally adding more subjective factors to the admissions process was supposed to aide in the selection of candidates from underrepresented groups that were unable to compete on objective criteria like scores and grades, but had other less quantifiable strengths. Now Arrhenius is taking the position that the subjective factors are the ones that justify continuing to underrepresent groups even when there are enough well qualified candidates to fully represent the group by objective criteria.</p>
<p>It is interesting that when the metric is more objective like grades and graduation rates women do better. However, when there is a more subjective judge, like a hiring boss or an admissions committee, women tend to be selected less frequently, or given a worse offer. That seems consistent with the point that you are making. </p>
<p>I recently read that when discussing the promotion of a man, the discussion usually centers around his “potential” but when it is about a woman is is about whether she has “demonstrated abilities”. The woman has to already have the skills, but the man only needs to have the potential to obtain them.</p>
<p>We are getting there, but more slowly than some of us would like.</p>
<p>I’m not sure how grades and graduation rates are “more objective” indicators of ability than by competitions or awards. While girls have a marginal advantage in grades, is the fact that males make up 90% of competition/award winners lost?</p>
<p>You seem to be pre-facto saying that women at MIT get better grades than men. The issue is that even grades are a function of many subjective factors, among which include the diligence of the students, their importance in the perspective of the students, and so on. </p>
<p>I certainly agree that there is both a societal and institutional bias against women in math and science. However, I’m not sure that, at the roots, there are just as many equally qualified females as males. In my opinion, it’s the bias against women that does not mask but rather causes the difference.</p>
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</p>
<p>The problem is that, socially, men are immediately assumed to be more competent. For identical resumes, ones with a man’s name on top will be more likely to be chosen than one with a women’s name. There’s no reason to think that competitions/awards would be immune to this effect.</p>
<p>The bias both masks and causes the difference.</p>
<p>Here are a couple of recent studies that show the underlying bias that causes girls to appear less competitive. When teachers believe that boys are more talented, the boys and girls both see that and it impacts both groups. One is encouraged and the other is discouraged. </p>
<p>The second study shows how the use of soft metrics leads to bias in favor of the males. This occurred true whether the person evaluating was a man or a woman.</p>
<p>Boys get more credit than they deserve.
[Math</a> teachers demonstrate a bias toward white male students, study finds](<a href=“http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120416150359.htm]Math”>Math teachers demonstrate a bias toward white male students, study finds -- ScienceDaily)
After analyzing this data, the researchers found disparities between teachers’ favorable perceptions of the abilities of their white male students and these students’ scores. Conversely, white female students were perceived by teachers to be doing more poorly in their math classes than they actually were.</p>
<p>Resume Research
[Study</a> shows gender bias in science is real. Here?s why it matters. | Unofficial Prognosis, Scientific American Blog Network](<a href=“http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/unofficial-prognosis/2012/09/23/study-shows-gender-bias-in-science-is-real-heres-why-it-matters/]Study”>Study shows gender bias in science is real. Here's why it matters. - Scientific American Blog Network)</p>
<p>Anecdotally I see this type of behavior often
An Algebra II/Trig teacher has a freshman girl who comes in frequently before school to ask questions and explanations of details. The teacher characterized the girl as I untalented, requires too much guidance and lacking independent problem solving skills.
A boy exhibiting the same behavior was characterized recognized as hard working, curious, interested in the subject, a developing talent, highly motivated, goes the extra mile and self confident enough to come in and ask questions.</p>
<p>What happens is that, in the teachers model of the world, they believe that boys are better at math and so it is easy to see each kid and label them from that perspective. The reality is that the teacher had these labels / stereotypes pre-developed. They did not reflect the individual kids at all (they were both taking a similar approach). They reflected the teacher putting each student neatly into their preconceived boxes.</p>
<p>@12 5’s guys thing: I’m the guy. I did get 12 5s, and I did list them all. That wasn’t an embellishment or lie at all. Maybe me saying “I wrote them down” seemed to imply that I didn’t actually get them, but I did. Besides, I think my counselor sent them in (maybe? Not sure.) But I surely did earn them all and did not lie on my application.</p>
<p>Way to go run1116!</p>
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</p>
<p>Uh, it’s been said by MIT adcoms that the men who are admitted are, on average, slightly more academically qualified than the women. There is affirmative action for women already at MIT, though none of us outside of the admissions office know how strong the effect is. It was also said that the women graduate from MIT with slightly higher GPAs (less than 0.1). With regard to higher graduation rates of women, an MIT adcom (Marilee Jones) has also said that men populate the extremes of achievement at MIT more frequently than the women-- more stars but also more dropouts.</p>
<p>There are so many factors at work and it’s important to recognize that they could easily confound these small differences. For one, the average GPA difference doesn’t take into a count the different male/female ratios in different majors. Engineering majors tend to have more men, and speaking as someone who has taken both science and engineering classes at MIT, the curve for engineering tends to be a bit harder. The mean was B+/C- for engineering; it tends to be closer to a middle “B” for science majors. That alone could account for the skew in GPA. And frankly, I think some majors are more intellectually taxing than others (aerospace engineering or physics for instance), though there are other skills which make more non-theoretical disciplines difficult. Don’t get on my case for this, as I am not in one of the theoretical disciplines. </p>
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<p>There are quite a few math and science competitions that are completely objective.</p>
<p>In general, I think these discussions about politically charged issues are muddled because people go in a thousand directions at once. What are we talking about in terms of fairness here? That we should reward both males and females the same for the same performance? I think we all agree on that. That we should account for bias in the evaluation of the performance? I think people could get carried away with this and account for any difference in evaluation to gender, though I agree that some girls are less likely to speak up in class. And if anything, I would think we should be more apt to rely on measurables such as objective standardized tests or contests, but people rarely want to do that. Or are we going to account for the fact that girls may not have been encouraged as much as men, and so women should be favored even if they actually performed worse? </p>
<p>I think MIT actively tries to adhere to the first two definitions of fairness, and somewhat on the third, within reason.</p>
<p>I meant to say that the mean in engineering classes was on the B-/C+ borderline.</p>
<p>Anyway, I don’t agree with piling on one group or the other. The reality is that the vast majority of MIT students were pretty the best student in their high school; there was no relying on bias or being braggadocious to attain that status.</p>
<p>^ “Same performance” isn’t clear. When men are actively encouraged into science whereas women are actively discouraged, the objective same performance results from the women overcoming more than the men - and people who push more in general are the people MIT wants, because those people will be more successful in the future.</p>
<p>got my tuuuuuube! :D</p>
<p>Quote: “…men populate the extremes of achievement at MIT more frequently than the women-- more stars but also more dropouts.”</p>
<p>It seems to me, that there are a lot of things that cause men to be credited as a superstar, while women are often the real superstars, but get no credit. Women are more likely to really want to help others in their class and in the world. People like Mollie, and Lydia, and Piper who spend countless hours answering our endless questions. A woman I know who graduated from MIT last year spends her evenings teaching science to underprivileged children in the inner city. That probably won’t win her a Nobel Prize, but to me, that is a superstar. All the female students who could have taken a research project, or an internship, but spent their summer showing girls how to code and build circuits at WTP, because they care about giving back to the community. Those ladies are stars to me who exemplify the type of student MIT is targeting. Unfortunately, their reward is that they are viewed as behind the boys who played more selfishly. </p>
<p>Quote “I would think we should be more apt to rely on measurables such as objective standardized tests or contests, but people rarely want to do that.”</p>
<p>I agree that these should be important. I understand the importance of more qualitative metrics. However, it concerns me when I see members of underrepresented group (women) posting 2300+ SATs and excellent grades, and at least solid ECs posting rejections or deferrals. Then I see some men being admitted with 2000 or 2100 scores and worse grades. Then the school announces that they admitted 22% more men because there weren’t enough top female candidates. Certainly, there are many things that we do not see, but it is enough to make you question what is really happening. And I am not implying any intent at all. It is just that as studies are showing that the same resume gets a better offer with a man’s name on it, you naturally also question a holistic approach that is done by vote. If UR candidates are being rejected with better grades and scores than over represented candidates, it should raise a concern that a similar thing may be happening here.</p>
<p>I just hope that, behind the scenes, these are the types of discussions that the University President and the Board are having with the admissions office. </p>
<p>My concerns about Science contests are that it seems that in general boys are encouraged to pursue then much more than girls are, and it is impossible to verify what the student actually did and what help they received. Unlike a test, the environment is not controlled and if the parents are scientists or engineers, or in some cases hire engineers to help their student with a project, how much credit should the kid get for winning a science fair? How can you tell? As long as you can’t tell how much help was received, I do not see how you can reasonably put any weight on that type of achievement.</p>