"Carnegie Mellon University’s first-year class of 2021+ has a majority of women for the first time in the University’s history, marking another milestone among the top universities that are bridging the gender and minority gaps in certain fields. 51 percent of the class of 2021+ are women, and specifically the proportion of women in Carnegie Mellon’s six undergraduate colleges continues to increase.
Interim president Farnam Jahanian, interim provost Laurie Weingart, and Dean of Admissions Michael Steidel suggest that Carnegie Mellon’s progress in attracting more women in the last few years is the result of strategic academic and professional planning within each college, as well as the whole university’s endeavor to prioritize building a sense of community based on diversity and inclusion." …
And why is gender balance at CMU a positive when all liberal arts colleges are now 70% women? Do we want boys to be street people or do boys belong at state schools and Rose Hullman in Indiana?!
I see no reason CMU or MIT should gender balance when the majority of applicants are boys. All this does is give an unfair advantage to girls. Why should schools discriminate based on sex? that is SEXIST. Look at the Common Data set to see what I mean. The school that skews towards girls the most are: Harvey Mudd College and Franklin Olin College, but CMU is guilty as charged. Its just wrong.
A large amount of gender balancing favoring males has been going on in schools for years, and I don’t hear many howling about it. Don’t see the problem with a little encouragement for women going into STEM.
Guys have the option of going into trades, many of which offer decent paying work, and if you Lean that way, the option of opening your own business. It’s not easy, especially in the first few years, but there is far less in the way of office politics in trades, and a fair amount of independence and freedom.
Women aren’t barred from trades, but they are still a huge minority. While thinking is definitely necessary to be a good tradesman, a certain amount of physical strength is needed to be in the trades, and some women simply can’t do it.
The day is coming when women with degrees start hanging around job sites harassing tradesman with wolf whistles and suggestive commentary on their body parts.
‘Guys have the option of going into trades, many of which offer decent paying work…’ Good advice, if you’re living in 1960.
‘…there is far less in the way of office politics in trades, and a fair amount of independence and freedom.’ Yes, and also and great opportunity for the small business to fail.
OTOH, there is no conspiracy keeping males out of 4 year schools. Boys are not dumber. Females now score 36 points below males on the Math portion of the SAT and 4 points lower on Verbal. You can’t blame colleges for wanting the most motivated students, the ones who apply themselves in high school. If that happens to be more females (and it is) who can blame them?
Why is it that everytime a minority (be it gender or race) gets a little more representation then the norm, the privileged majority shout “RACISM! SEXISM!” as if they had no merit of their own? Women’s representation in CMU has been growing for quite some time, this just shows that more women are interested in STEM fields.
Some individuals (of either gender) might see a gender-balanced class as a more desirable situation, thereby increasing yield for the University. My son seemed to be pleased when this year’s gender split was announced at orientation.
Why assume sexism or their stats are lower, @Coloradomama ? My daughter was interested in CMU for a variety of reasons, but mostly because they had more women faculty to serve as mentors and she wouldn’t be greatly outnumbered like was the situation in other schools. They could be attracting many more female applicants because of this. My daughter had 36 ACT and 780/800 subject tests.
@icipi Yes, it’s roughly half female in CS and engineering. My daughter wouldn’t apply to any school that was under 30/70. I suspect the 40/60+ schools get a concentration of many more, and stronger, female applicants.
Perhaps I’m out of touch–but I wish we were at the point where its only credentials, stats, leadership, and achievements that schools were crowing about for their incoming class, instead of patting themselves on the back for the purple, green, gender attributes of a class.
This is coming from the mom of a high stat, math / science girl in a traditionally male dominated major. She hates when schools compliment themselves on the number of women in a particular field. She thinks that it diminishes her qualifications and validity.
@luloobee I think it’s a necessary evil. When I graduate from CMU 25 years ago, there were twice as many male UGs as females, and the difference in some majors was striking. It’s great that we’ve reached the point where most of society realizes that men and women are equally capable of being competent, even innovative engineers in scientists. However, application counts still tend to show an imbalance of men vs women applying to the schools.
i graded from CMU in the 80’s in MechE. For that degree there were only 8 women in a class of about 80. I have no doubt that even though I had high Math scores, good grades and top 10% of of my HS, that being a woman, applying ot engineering back then, really helped me. OTOH I was wait listed at Penn.
We attended an admitted students event at CMU SCS last spring, and they said the admitted pool was at least 50% female in SCS.
I agree that it’s a necessary thing. DS is at Caltech this year, and their incoming undergrad classes have been about 45% female for about 3 years. We have male friends who attended back before it was even 30% female, and they admit that it stunted them socially. If Caltech had still been 30/70, we would have recommended against it for our son.
Coloradomama, you sound like a mother who wants to blame others when your son is rejected.The women accepted at CMU, MIT and Harvey Mudd are not getting in because they are female. They are probably better qualified than your son. The top students in high schools are girls. That is why they are being accepted.
How did these girls do on the math Putnam exam? Girls traditionally do worse than boys on math exams. Look at the Common data set for MIT and you will see how much easier it is to get in as a girl to MIT or CMU. And it hurts the girls , not the boys. Girls self esteem gets crushed when they see that boys who are better at math are rejected and they get in. I see girl after girl tell me that at MIT. I visit undergrads at MIT every year as I am an Educational Counselor. The Common Data set will explain that if you study it. Girls with lower math skills get into both CMU and MIT.