<p>Anyone know of schools where women might have an edge in admissions or merit aid? I know it is becoming more even but people keep saying that schools are looking for women in engineering. I'd just like to know where.</p>
<p>I would say that most engineering schools are looking for female students, particularly in more traditional engineering disciplines (women tend to be better represented in Biomedical Engineering programs). I don’t know if there would be any edge but I know that any female applicant in engineering at my school, Illinois Institute of Technology, is most welcome.</p>
<p>RPI, WPI, Case Western, RIT, Clarkson. I’m sure there are many more, probably most STEM-centric colleges. Perhaps BU or Northeastern (I know a girl who got significant merit aid at both but she was also at the top of her class and had near perfect test scores too).
What else are your looking for, in terms of other criteria? Her GPA and test scores will play a factor.</p>
<p>At NCES College Navigator, you can see the acceptance rates separated for male and female applicants. So you could look up schools of interest and see how the acceptance rates compare.</p>
<p>[College</a> Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics](<a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/]College”>College Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics)</p>
<p>I think that in general schools in which the male/female student ratio is biased towards males are those that will be trying to even the ratio, and be more likely to admit women or give them merit aid. Most “tech” type schools would qualify. </p>
<p>How selective of a school are you looking for? What are the student’s test scores, grades, rank?</p>
<p>I was going to answer “Illinois Tech” but you already got that answer. Women are given importance at most of the STEM schools. So don’t worry about finding one; you’ll end up finding many!!</p>
<p>For example, Cornell dies for “female in engineering” applicants!</p>
<p>You can see from the Common Data Set for given schools where this is the case, especially the engineering/STEM oriented schools like MIT, Cal Tech, Harvey Mudd, Rose-Hulman, Olin, etc. You can see how many males and how many females applied and how many were accepted. I am not convinced, however, that women have an edge in merit aid at those schools.</p>
<p>In many fields of engineering, women are grossly underrepresented. When I was at Stanford, the M/F ratio in EE appeared to be ~10:1 in undergrad. I sometimes had classes with as little as 1 female student. According to the AAEE, the following engineering fields all have <15% of degrees awarded to female students (listed from lowest % to highest %):</p>
<p>Computer Engineering
Computer Science
Electrical/Computer
Electrical
Mechanical
Aerospace
Mining</p>
<p>Many colleges do give preferences to genders that are underrepresented in their field to promote better diversity in a similar way that they might give preference to underrepresented races, socioeconomic backgrounds, locations, etc. I’d expect the colleges that give the most preferences are usually either ones that are known for their diversity policies or ones that are primarily engineering schools (since there are fewer humanities majors to balance out the overall M/F ratio).</p>
<p>A similar trend occurs with some employers. A male engineer I used to work with has an androgynous first name that is more often given to women than men. He mentioned that when he came in for job interviews, the person conducting interviews would often obviously be surprised and disappointed when they saw he was a male. They might say something like, “Wait… you’re {name}?.. Okay… I guess you can still interview.”</p>
<p>I thought Female is a Hook when applying to any engineering schools or at least behaves like one.</p>
<p>Re: “STEM majors” and female students</p>
<p>As usual, STEM majors are not all the same. In the US, female students are well represented in biology and chemistry, but less well represented in physics, math, engineering, and computer science.</p>
<p>Washington university!</p>
<p>At SUNY Maritime College applying as a female for any degree program may give you an edge in admissions considering their male to female ratio. So being an engineering applicant and/or a regiment applicant could be big pluses.</p>
<p>Well, here’s the catch: she slacked her first 2 years so now the highest GPA she can have at the end of this year, her junior year, is a little over a 3.0. This year she has taken AP Chem 2 and is getting a B but that is the only honors class she is in. Next year she will be taking AP Calc 1, AP Spanish, honors physics, stat/prob and CADD. She was supposed to take AP Stat but they didn’t have enough kids signed up so they aren’t offering it. Her ACT composite was only 25, but that was her first time taking it. She is taking it in June, and if need be, again in the fall. Thanks for all the input.</p>
<p>Hmmm… merit aid may be tough with those stats. What was her junior-year GPA?</p>
<p>She is a junior now.</p>
<p>Which state are you in? Are there any instate public schools that offer engineering? How selective is the flagship? </p>
<p>There are a number of state schools which might work.</p>
<p>We are in RI and URI has a very well respected engineering program. She doesn’t want to go there. It’s a small state and it would feel like high school. She will apply though because its better than nothing. She really likes Binghamton University. The OOS cost isn’t that much higher than URIs in state cost. That’s unfortunate for us in RI. It’s very expensive.</p>
<p>SUNY Binghamton isn’t that great for engineering. Buffalo and Stony Brook are better.</p>
<p>There are many schools in the region, both big and small that she can choose from. She will need to apply to both Safety and Reach schools, albeit more Safety than Reach.</p>
<p>If she can show year-over-year gpa improvement (an up-trend), it will be a plus. The hook(s) will play an important role for schools to reach out with admission, scholarship, etc. But college scholarships come with strings attached: specific gpa threshold. In a more competitive school or a scholarship situation, she may feel pressured or stressed out over her gpa.</p>
<p>The other thing is whether she wants to study Engineering. Nowadays internet abuzz with the Best and the Worst majors in college. I think the message is a little overkill.</p>
<p>Well, she decided she wanted to study mechanical engineering after taking a CADD class and loving it. She loves Binghamton because they have a huge number of Jewish students and she wants that.</p>
<p>I suspect the GPA will be a hindrance at many schools. </p>
<p>Most schools have engineering as one of the hardest areas of entrance and also one of the hardest to graduate from.</p>