<p>This thread arises from the bruhaha overs Summers' comments concerning women in science. Some have construed his comments to be blatant sexism.</p>
<p>However, the question that should concern this year's EA and RD applicants goes along these lines:</p>
<p>Does Harvard discriminate against women with Hard Science majors in the admissions process?</p>
<p>Why can MIT, Stanford and Cornell (and countless other schools with strong Engineering programs) find qualified female students and Harvard is stuck at 30% female enrollment in Engineering. Is it an institutionalized decision based on the kind of bias Summers' comments would seem to indicate?</p>
<p>What is the percent of female enrollment in other Hard Sciences at Harvard? Physics? Math? Chem? Bio? Are they as pitiful as Engineering? anybody know?</p>
<p>No, there is no discrimination. From Summer's comments, he would even indicate that he wanted to change the percentage difference between sexes. It was his perception of the *reason for the difference that angered people. He didn't cause the difference!</p>
<p>Note the end of the article, "He has promised to work on the problem." (If it is a problem, and if it can be worked on. . . both of which I'm not sure about)</p>
<p>Thanks, Jono, I appreciate your thoughtful response. </p>
<p>I'm going to give you my most extreme view and express some big assumptions I'm making ...and you let me know where I'm going wrong. Byerly, if you read this, chime in too.</p>
<p>Extreme View: I feel that Harvard should take 100% of the women that apply that are qualified until they start approaching a better balance of male and female in the engineering program--at least 60-40. Isn't MIT close to 50-50.</p>
<p>Big Assumptions: Obviously only the admissions office has the data, but I find it hard to believe that only 50 or so qualified women apply to Harvard DEAS each year. Here's why. Probably every woman admitted to MIT, Cornell, Brown, Dartmouth, Stanford and Princeton for Engineering (EASILY over 500 female applicants(maybe a thousand?)) could succeed in the Harvard program. I further assume about 30% to 40% of this MIT/Stanford/Cornell/Princeton?Brown/Dartmouth pool applied to Harvard too. We know that Harvard gets an 80% yield, so I figure if Harvard tried to get some of those Engineering applicants, they would have had their usual success and, therefore, the number of women admitted to Harvard would be higher.</p>
<p>Conclusion: I suspect that Harvard has decided to cap female enrollment in Engineering at 30%, and that they justify this by the kind of thinking Summers demonstrated in his speech, i.e. girls are good at other things, not science and Engineering.</p>
<p>How else can you explain only 40 to 50 women admits per year.</p>
<p>I think it is equally as bad to admit them for being women as it is to reject them for being women. Summers was playing the devil's advocate of sorts. The whole situation is caused by a bunch of insecure female scientists who are a little offended that Summers stated some facts. I would imagine that many more males apply for engineering than do females, although like you I have no hard numbers to back this up. The better question is: "What are the rates of acceptance for males and the rates of acceptance for females" taking into account only qualified applicants possibly. If the rate is 90% male and 5% female you may have a point, but until someone gets numbers to back up the sexism, I see it as nothing but rampant insecurity. :)</p>
<p>Think it through a little further and Summers' comments are even scarier. Ask yourself, where did he get the content for his speech? Since he isn't in the Sciences or Engineering, since he's an administrator handling lots of other issues, he would have to rely on the Dean of the sciences/engineering department to give him the talking points. That means it's very likely the Dean of the school Engineering thinks exactly what Larry said.</p>
<p>Even worse, if that's what they're willing to say in public, WHAT ARE THEY SAYING IN PRIVATE?</p>
<p>itsallgood,
All that seems to be a bit of a stretch. Yes Larry Summers said something incredibly stupid that he shouldn't have said (as he often does), but let's not all start running around as if the sky is falling because of overly drawn out speculations about where he got the idea.</p>
<p>I'm glad Larry blurted it out. Now all the women who applied to DEAS with 1500+ SATs, high GPA's and strong ECs know why they didn't get admitted. They only take 40 to 50 girls. The other 100 + spaces are RESERVED for the real engineers.</p>
<p>Carmel, yes, I'm wound up a little tight. Sorry.<br>
Patrick, my apologies.</p>
<p>But 30% in Engineering when Princeton, Cornell, MIT, Dartmouth, etc can find strong candidates indicates that Harvard isn't making Women In Engineering a priority, despite the lip service to the contrary.</p>
<p>Should they make it a priority? Why not admit the best applicants regardless of their gender? If for whatever reason that yields 30% women then what is the problem? Summers was addressing possible reasons why it would only be 30% qualified applicants. He was just throwing ideas out there and letting people think. Summers is agreeing with you, he is saying there are reasons women aren't as large a force as men, and he was saying we need to identify those reasons. Cultural values are a large part of it, but he was saying that there could be other reasons, of which "inherent differences" as I believe he put it, were just one he suggested as a possible reason. He never said "Women aren't as good at science and I'll never let them in to Harvard."</p>
<p>Do you really think there are only 50 qualified women, especially when MIT, Princeton, Cornell and Stanford admit hundreds each. Sure looks like a 30% quota cap to me.</p>
<p>That wasn't my point, itsallgood. My point was "why should women be a priority?" I agree that if they are qualified they should have an equal chance at admission as a male, but I don't agree that they should have a better chance just to undo some potential past discrimination. Maybe Cornell, MIT, Princeton, and Stanford all admit some less than qualified women to get their numbers up. We don't have admissions data so we just don't know. Lots of qualified men get rejected, that doesn't mean there is a 70% cap for males.</p>
<p>Every year, Harvard admits roughly the same percentage of students into each college. They publish this info twice each year, once when they announce admits in May and again when they crow about their 80% yield later in the summer. It's obvious that the leadership of the University decides overall make-up--that's Summers and his administrative cronies--not the clerks and readers in Admissions. Admissions takes direction from the overall leadership of the University, not vice versa. Anybody that knows anything, would agree.</p>
<p>They have admitted 8% to 9% of all admits into Engineering the last 3 or 4 years, at least since I started paying attention. I call this their QUOTA because it doesn't change from year to year. If they want more, they would have to get Summers and other leadership to agree to expand the school enrollment. Since Harvard is not allowing the overall undergraduate population to grow, this would mean a decrease in some other school. I would bet that Deans of each school fight hard to keep their allocation the same. (By the way, less than 2% of applicants to Harvard apply undecided so it's easy to fill spots in departments and programs. Of course, some people will switch majors but it should all tend to even out). </p>
<p>Somewhere between 25% and 30% of current engineering students are female. I got this number directly from Harvard 1 year ago. It is my belief--and I have no direct proof (how could I?)--that this is the QUOTA that Harvard DEAS has for female engineering enrollment, just like each department has a quota for total enrollment. How else would you explain it being the same year after year?</p>
<p>So, the question is: "Why 30%?"</p>
<p>Based on Summers' statements, it might be Discrimimination.</p>
<p>Any other theories?</p>
<p>Can anyone in Admissions who might be reading this enlighten us?</p>
<p>Why would rates change widely year to year? The same number of qualified applicants would be applying each year.</p>
<p>Oh, and just to add this in: after each test in my Chem class the grades of the males are averaged and the grades of the females are averaged. The males have won every singe time, usually by a margin of ten or so percentage points. Take that for what it's worth.</p>
<p>The only reason why MIT admits so many females is that they give a VERY STRONG tip to females so they can get close to 50-50. Females have a nearly 30% chance at getting into MIT. Males 10%. Harvard isn't discriminating, MIT is. If anything, it shows that harvard does not give preference to females in engineering.</p>
<p>And before anyone replies to theleet before me, I'd like to point out that not giving a preference to females DOES NOT equal discriminating against them, as some would have you believe.</p>
<p>"Oh, and just to add this in: after each test in my Chem class the grades of the males are averaged and the grades of the females are averaged. The males have won every singe time, usually by a margin of ten or so percentage points. Take that for what it's worth"</p>
<p>This comment is uncalled for and does not help your point at all. First off, let me just say that I do not think that Harvard is discriminating against girls in admissions. We do not know how many people applied to Harvard for engineering and we do not know the acceptance rates. If anything, girls are being helped in the admissions process. As for receiving jobs, I don't know. Now, back to the quote. In my physics AP class there are just a few more girls than guys in it. The girls score higher each and every time. There are a few really smart guys though. It all depends on the individuals in your class. Maybe fewer women are interested in the sciences, but that doesn't make them worse at them. As I said earlier, I do not think Summers was trying to imply that women are worse than men, he was just trying to say that for some reason less women are interested in the sciences and that reason could be from some genetic cause. However, he did not word it properly and it did come out rather offensive.</p>
<p>The teacher is a female...she is an excellent teacher and a fabulous chemist who had her own chemical company before she decided she wanted to teach. Obviously she is a woman who is wonderful at science. Every one of her students loves her, too. I was just adding it in. You can take it for what it's worth, which in your opinion is not very much. No problem. Do you actually know the grades of all the kids or are you guessing? It always depends on the individuals. When hasn't it?</p>
<p>Why are we arguing? I don't know. I don't think all women are bad at science. I don't think all men are good at them. No one knows whether men are better in general than women. To say that they are or they aren't is ridiculous. No one has evidence either way. I think the blanket statement of "Men are better at math and science" is just as dumb as the blanket statement "Men and women are equal." If a female dean or president of a major university said she felt that men were genetically less apt at writing and poetry than women, I wouldn't care. I'd say she doesn't have any proof men are. I'd also realize I don't have any proof that they aren't.</p>
<p>"During Dr Summers's presidency, the proportion of tenured jobs offered to women has fallen from 36 per cent to 13 per cent. Last year, only four of 32 tenured job openings were offered to women."</p>
<p>Also during his tenure, women continue to be substantially under-represented in Engineering, and presumably the other hard sciences.</p>
<p>These are facts. While they are not proof of discrimination, they certainly support a legitimate concern and justify inquiry.</p>