<p>I'm not trying to be sexist or discriminatory at all by asking this question, but a friend of mine told me that as a female I would have a better chance of getting into GA Tech then if I was a male if I kept my grades way up. Is this true? Because it sounds rather ridiculous. She swore by it but I'm a little skeptical. Does anyone know anything about this? </p>
<p>GA Tech is about 75% men, so I’d be inclined to say that she is correct. Not that it will have a huge effect, but it should be in your favor</p>
<p>In order to avoid becoming 75-95% men (not due to grades, but because more boys have an interest in engineering than girls, at least in HS) and encourage women in choosing engineering, engineering schools will give a little boost to women who apply.
Olin (a top engineering school in the northeast) actually has a 50-50 policy, so that no matter how many apply, there ought to be an equal number of men and women admitted to the school.</p>
<p>Admission rates in 2013 were 37% for boys, 50% for girls, so girls, assuming all else is equal, have more than a 1-1/2 x greater chance of being accepted. This is true at many schools. At MIT, I believe it is about 2x. However, admissions people say all else is not equal- girls are more self-selecting for technical/engineering schools, and the pool of women candidates is a stronger pool than men. Look up the Common Data Set for any school of interest, section C1:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.irp.gatech.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/CDS_2013-2014_04292014.pdf”>http://www.irp.gatech.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/CDS_2013-2014_04292014.pdf</a></p>
<p>It is hard to say just from the admission rates of boys and girls. Girls who interest in engineering may have better credential the boys. Unfortunately, little is known about the admission stats of girls and boys separately in addition to admission rate. Nevertheless, this gender bias in engineering admission is generally true for many schools but with a few exceptions like Stanford. </p>
<p>My D2 is a Freshman at GTech. Can’t really tell whether there is a slight bias towards girls, all other credentials being equal, though I too have heard about this. The only thing I know is that 2 boys from her school also got accepted at GTech and their credentials (GPA, SAT/ACT stats, ECs) were not as strong as hers.</p>
<p>I agree with what @ItsJustSchool has posted.</p>
<p>They’ll be weaker pools of girls because many guys will be scared to apply since they know it’s harder for them and some girls may apply since they know it’s easier and they have a better shot …</p>
<p>With all due respect, @theanaconda, your logic is interesting. The pool of girls, according to people in admissions, is stronger than the pool of boys, thus girls have a higher percentage acceptance rate than their prevalence in the general american population.</p>
<p>Does this logic spring from similarly flawed logic that since asians are over-represented (i.e. a greater percentage of asians are accepted to many schools than their representation in the general population- similar to girls vs. general population in this example), it would somehow be harder for an asian to be accepted to a school than a non-asian? It somehow seems the opposite of that logic. Are you now saying it is easier for asians to be accepted? Wait- what are you saying?</p>
<p>How do you reconcile both (simplistic) world views of structurally similar situations, in your own mind? Is this sexism?</p>