<p>I am a female interested in studying engineering in college (and who knows what after that). I've already been accept to MIT, Caltech, Columbia (likely), and Cornell (likely). What I'm worried about is the "treatment" of females in engineering. </p>
<p>In my Cornell letter, it basically screamed (to me at least) we want you because you have two X chromosomes! I didn't really like that and it made me feel as if I was less qualified than the male applicants. (Also, for some reason, they scheduled their "Women in Science" weekend to be the same days as MIT's accepted students weekend)</p>
<p>I also felt this when I visited Princeton last summer. The tour guide said "I'm surprised I got into Princeton as a female because I didn't apply under engineering". Is this the feeling overall? I mean, I would like to think that I could have gotten into all these colleges regardless of my gender, but what do others think?</p>
<p>From my experience, being a woman in engineering has its ups and downs. You'll be more conspicuous (especially in EE, less so in Chem and BME/BE) which may or may not work in your favour. Most professors are very supportive and encouraging. There'll always be chauvinists who find it surprising that women are in engineering so you may feel left out of the men's club from time to time, but if you truly enjoy engineering, then you shouldn't find it a problem to relate to other engineers.</p>
<p>The reality is that nearly all schools are interested in having more women in their engineering, computer science, science and math programs because these are academic areas where the numbers of male students tend to dominate. Schools tend to get many more applications to study these academic areas from guys. So it is no surprise that women applicants are sought after and encouraged to attend engineering programs. You must certainly be qualified to do the work or else you wouldn't have been accepted. So you shouldn't take overbearing encouragement to attend as a negative reflection on you (or on the schools or their engineering programs). </p>
<p>As more and more women go into engineering, there will be fewer and fewer men in the workplace with chauvinistic attitudes.</p>
<p>"So is it true that it's easier for women applying to engineering to get into schools like Caltech and MIT?"</p>
<p>Well, I think it would be easier for them to stand out as applicants during the admissions process. Many people feel that some top engineering institutions lower the standards for female applicants. This is almost never the case. Female applicants that get accepted to top schools like MIT and Caltech have grades and test scores equal to their male peers, but as females, it makes it easier to get to the top of the admissions pile. At the top institutions you can expect that there are many applicants with near perfect credentials. Being female makes it more likely that they will pick you from among the sea of near perfect candidates.</p>
<p>I doubt that it's easier for females (or conversely, harder for males), at least at Caltech. Their male to female ratio likely, at least to a good degree, reflects the ratio of applicants.</p>
<p>My daughter wants to major in engineering. Where should she go? She likes UOP in Cali where we live, but, likes Virginia Tech because of the participation in the DARPA Grand Challenge which she participated in as well. Lastly, she has also been accepted to CSU Pomona and SLO.
I am thinking an east coast experience might be good. I graduated from UOP and that is neat that she got accepted there. Please advise.</p>
<p>Every person and every institution has their own set of conscious and unconscious prejudices. Sometimes they work for us, sometimes against. You probably get a slight edge in admissions being a woman in engineering. In other disciplines at schools of this calibre, being a woman is a disadvantage. </p>
<p>As to the original poster, all four of the colleges you mention treat women for engineering as a URM and thus being a woman is a plus factor at each. Not a huge factor but good to have -- an MIT admissions official once described it as getting about 20 extra points for your SAT. </p>
<p>As to mermaidjodi's question, I do not know much about University of Pacific. Vtech is very good and has a national rep for engineering. Cal Poly SLO (which I assume you were referring to) the same. I would consider biggest factors to going east to VTech to be cost and distance from home and not difference in quality.</p>