Women make up majority of Carnegie Mellon first-years

How about the 60-70% girls at almost every liberal arts college across the USA? Are those girls stunted socially ? Its a double standard with girls getting the majority of liberal arts seats and 45% of engineering and CS seats at the very top colleges. Boys are being shoved out of the top college degrees. If one is white or Asian and male it’s worse. It’s simply racist and sexist and will hurt the girl who is shoved into CMU who is less well prepared in math. She can make it up or self study as anyone can though. She will know why she got in, if she is not up to par in mathematics, she will suffer just as any boy would who is not skilled in math. CMU is a mathematically intensive CS degree with proof based discrete math, a year of linear algebra as well as calculus and analysis required to graduate.

Girls do a little better on essay writing and often interview better at MIT than boys. That’s my experiences and I think forcing gender balance is a huge mistake for the girl herself. But she can self select out as anyone can so no real harm done.

The part no one talks about is the weed out process for women when they get into their careers. Look at the numbers. Women are weeded right out and even fired if they get pregnant. Silicon Valley women are suing now. See Tina Huang’s lawsuit against Twitter. But there are thousands of “Tina Huangs” who stayed silent, got fired for being a girl and left high tech.

Think about that !!

There’re certainly social benefits of having a more gender balanced class. However, these colleges shouldn’t be over-doing it. At these colleges, the number of male applicants exceeds that of female applicants by a ratio of up to 3x, so it’s obvious that the boys are presently more interested and passionate about the STEM fields. To really succeed in any field (not just STEM fields), you need both passion and ability. With the lopsided male/female applicant ratio and the aim to have gender balanced outcome, the colleges have to admit many female applicants with lesser ability than that of many rejected male applicants. Leaving fairness question aside, is that good for the advancement of science and technology?

@colardomama my Korean daughter was first girl on high school math team representing state team. She did not get selected beacuse she was girl. Her scores were better than majority of boys on the state team. She is a student who is taking BC calculus in 11th grade. She is not in the class because she is a girl. She is there because she can match boys on every level. All her life people told her she does not belong in higher math and science. She is fortunate that she has found mentors and coaches who encourages her drive. When would people stop saying girls can not compete. They can and do even better provided people do not poison their boys minds and do not treat girls as second class citizens.

One more problem that is if a student is looking for need based aid, these students are in a disadvantageous position compared to full pay students. But such is life.

@infinityprep1234 I’m not following your logic. These schools are all need-blind and more than generous in providing FA. What does FA have to do with the issues we’re discussing? Also, nobody, including @Coloradomama, is questioning many girls, certainly including yours, are capable and deserved to be admitted to these colleges. The only question is whether some of them who were admitted are less capable than some of the boys who were rejected, with such lopsided admit rates for the two sexes.

1NJparent my logic is simple, every time my daughter joins a math scince club she was discouraged heavily and was told by her peers that she does not belong here. She has to work harder than boys. once she proved her mattle, she was accepted just like any other guys. But it lead lot of anguish as we have to be there for her mental support as boys made fun of her in the begning. It is very hard for girls to compete at higher level as very few places support girls. It is not the math competiton but artitude of peers. Attitudes needs to be changed. Nothing more.

@infinityprep1234 I agree that these stereotypes are unhealthy, and in this case, detrimental to girls. So I believe extra efforts need to be made to encourage girls to pursue STEM careers. But to what extent? The part of your logic I don’t understand is about need-based financial aid you discussed in post #23.

If you look the data for colleges, very few colleges are truly need blind. MIT may be. but other colleges are need aware underneath the surface. When they select kids, they just look and check mark if student is applying for need based aid. Since majority of applicant need $$$$$$ to attend a school, Full pay have upper hand in the process as they are admitted in higher numbers over kids who need aid. But life is not fair. If a poor white or poor Asian kids want to be admitted, they have to bring something to colleges besides gardes and ECs and score.

MIT, Caltech, Harvey Mudd, CMU are all need-blind. CMU doesn’t meet full need but the other three do (with “need” defined differently by each school). An applicant requiring significant FA may be disadvantaged at CMU, but not at the other three schools, certainly not at Caltech or MIT. So, this is not equivalent to the issue of one sex being disadvantaged with respect to the other.

@Coloradomama and @1NJParent (and others), “Kicking Butt in Computer Science: Women in Computing at Carnegie Mellon University” by Carol Frieze and Jeria Quesenberry (just over 100 pages) explains why and how CMU chose to attract more women to Compuer Science (and other STEM fields).

Very worthwhile reading. The effort has been underway for almost 20 years and was carefully conceived and executed.

I’ll let that rest for a bit and then come back with some of my personal observations as a CMU female student’s parent later when I get them organized.

@1NJParent , re your statement “The only question is whether some of them who were admitted are less capable than some of the boys who were rejected, with such lopsided admit rates for the two sexes.”

“Less capable” of doing what? Can you provide some examples/scenarios? @Coloradomama has mentioned math contests - what else?

@SkepticalOfMost If admit rate for one sex is up to 3 times that of the other sex, year after year, isn’t it obvious that some of the rejected of the other sex would be more capable?

By the way, I’m not saying one sex is better than the other in STEM. I actually agree with the goal these colleges have and I think we should all encourage girls to be more interested in STEM. Clearly, girls are less interested in STEM than boys at the present time. However, using admit rates alone at such extent to achieve this goal would do damage to the advancement of science and technology in this country.

@1NJParent No, it’s not obvious at all. When schools have admission rates as low as engineering and CS at CMU, you cannot simply assume that a significant number of women accepted were “less capable” than men that were rejected. Heck, at the level of achievement that these students have reached I don’t think the concept of “less capable” is even applicable.

In addition to the difficulty in determining what makes one student more capable than another, there could be other factors that skew the numbers in favor of the women. I haven’t seen the overall stats of all applicants (which would include accepted AND denied), but I think it’s entirely possible that the women applying to schools like MIT and CMU have higher stats overall then the men. If society as a whole encourages the “average excellent” male to pursue CS and engineering but only offers such encouragement to the “truly exceptional” female, then it would follow that women’s scores would skew higher. Of course, I could be completely wrong.

As a (female) student eagerly waiting for her decision for the Class of 2022 (for Art and Design, not STEM, unfortunately,) I see no problem in empowering women to advance into STEM, considering there is a blatant lack of women advancing in that work field. I hate to say it, but this forum sounds a lot like “I/My child didn’t get into this school, so I’m going to bring down the people who did.”

My best friend, who is going to be studying Environmental Engineering at either USC or Georgia Tech, has received a lot of flack from people at my school for getting into a lot of STEM programs for what they believe is simply because she is a woman and a person of color. Nevermind the fact that she is possibly the smartest person at our school, has a 4.4 weighted GPA, received a 1520 on her SAT, a 32 (on her first try) on the ACT, a 780 on Subject II math, multiple impressive extra curriculars, etc.

This forum seems to forget that the women being promoted into these STEM majors are qualified. Anyone who is getting into Carnegie Mellon is qualified- they’re not going to admit someone if they’re not an accomplished student who is passionate about the school and the major. So frankly, the fact that many of the people on this forum would rather disregard their accomplishments seems petty, entitled, and unwarranted. Let’s not forget that women have to work ten times harder just to be viewed on the same level as a man and that it’s twenty times harder for female POCs. So before we jump to “reverse sexism” maybe let’s consider that society REQUIRES a woman to be more qualified than her male counterpart to receive the same benefits. From my view, this is a step in the right direction.

This is probably a stressful period for students and many parents alike, but let’s not question other people’s motives when making arguments. My DS was admitted to some of the finest STEM schools in this cycle, if that’s relevant at all. Going too far in either direction would likely bring undesirable outcomes. Moderation has its virtues.

I think there are way more qualified applicants of both genders to both CMU and MIT. So in that sense, maybe it is fair to gender balance both colleges, but then I think liberal arts colleges should consider gender balancing as well, for the exact same reasons that CMU does it. . The idea that only women struggle in STEM is a false idea. Everyone struggles who is trying to become a scientist or engineer. Its not smooth sailing at all, and I worry that women are in a gender balanced environment at both MIT and CMU and then lack the fortitude to face a work environment of 90% men at any large engineering firm. So I felt I had an advantage going to MIT when it was 80% men 20% women. It reflected my work environments pretty well, at Hewlett Packard, Seagate and government jobs. Its not as simple as getting a good STEM education and never was. Its about how to get along and in STEM , about how to get along with men, for now. Just like nursing is about how to get along with women, for now. Things may even out but it will take about another 50 to 100 years.

I work at a college that is 65ish% women. Men DO have an advantage in admissions. I know it’s similar at Vassar and some others.

There are so few engineering schools with anything close to gender parity that the ones with stats over 35% become very, very popular for strong female applicants. I wouldn’t assume the schools are lowering their standards at all. I suspect they have a larger, and stronger, applicant pool than most of the others.

Wouldn’t it be great if none of the race or sex questions get asked before enrollment. And then after they have their incoming class decided upon, that then they can ask those silly questions if they really wanted to know?

That is in my opinion the best way to avoid these controversial thoughts of preferencial treatments.

@slimmy No I don’t think so. One of the deciding factors for my DS to go to CMU was that they had remedied the previous gender imbalance. So they would have lost him as a student if it was still 70/30 m/f. Furthermore, one of the reasons I did not apply to MIT years ago despite a concerted effort to recruit me (I was a strong math girl, which was NOT trendy back then) was that it was 90/10 male/female. I just didn’t want that kind of attention – it was bad enough taking CS courses at University of Michigan in the 1980’s – I used to get messages asking me on dates sight unseen just because my user name was clearly female.

My son is a freshman at Caltech. Students work collaboratively on problem-sets, and I’ve asked who he tends to work with. He names a number of people, perhaps more than 1/2 of them female as the go-to people when you have difficulty figuring out an approach to a problem. He says the best and most helpful physics student he knows is a female sophomore. He has seen no indication that females at his school are somehow lesser students.

There is a higher admit rate for females. Perhaps because the size of the school is so small (235 students per year), everyone they accept (females included) is highly qualified. (Not to say courses are easy for everyone, because they aren’t.)

As with @psycholing, I am thankful that the gender balance is now healthy. They would have also lost him as a student if the ratio was still 70:30.

@slimmy There are schools that ignore race and gender for purposes of admission. The entire UC system for example.

When we went to an admitted student event at CMU SCS, they gave us some insight into the accepted student pool for computer science. They said that it was true that they had difficulty finding enough female CS applicants who already had amazing accomplishments in CS as HS students. But, they have found that by accepting females who are especially strong in math during HS, they find students who will do well in their program. The impression they gave was that male admits often already had a few years of CS experience. Female admits maybe had less CS experience but were high scorers in math at the AP Calc BC+ level.