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Old 03-14-2019, 07:17 PM
 
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While 70% applicants are male.
Is it really fair/reasonable? Are female candidates so much better than male candidates for STEM majors? (About 70% students study science and engineering.)

https://web.mit.edu/facts/enrollment.html
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Old 03-14-2019, 11:30 PM
 
Location: NY/LA
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Originally Posted by Bettafish View Post
While 70% applicants are male.
Is it really fair/reasonable? Are female candidates so much better than male candidates for STEM majors? (About 70% students study science and engineering.)

https://web.mit.edu/facts/enrollment.html
Do you have any data on the quality of the applicant pools? One possible explanation could be that male high school seniors are more likely to be aggressive in applying to “reach” schools, while female high school seniors are more conservative, so there maybe a discrepancy in the qualifications of the two groups.

Or there could be a half-dozen other explanations.
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Old 03-15-2019, 01:22 AM
 
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Originally Posted by Mr. Zero View Post
Do you have any data on the quality of the applicant pools? One possible explanation could be that male high school seniors are more likely to be aggressive in applying to “reach” schools, while female high school seniors are more conservative, so there maybe a discrepancy in the qualifications of the two groups.

Or there could be a half-dozen other explanations.
I don't really have much information about it so I am curious. MIT IS the top choice for many who are interested in engineering and science, so the reach school theory does not make a lot of sense.

A friend of mine said in his child's high school only one Korean girl was accepted by MIT although there are some (in his opinion) more qualified students.
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Old 03-15-2019, 11:40 AM
 
Location: NY/LA
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Originally Posted by Bettafish View Post
I don't really have much information about it so I am curious. MIT IS the top choice for many who are interested in engineering and science, so the reach school theory does not make a lot of sense.
The aggressive/conservative “reach” theory supposes that if you have male and female B+ students who are both unlikely to get into MIT, the B+ male students may be more encouraged to “take a shot” at MIT, while the B+ female students may be discouraged from applying altogether. If that were the case, you would have a much larger percentage of male applicants than female applicants, but the male applicant pool would be more diluted overall. In this example, I used grades, but the populations could also differ regarding extracurriculars, research, etc.

Again, this is just conjecture.
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Old 03-15-2019, 11:54 AM
 
Location: SoCal
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Originally Posted by Bettafish View Post
I don't really have much information about it so I am curious. MIT IS the top choice for many who are interested in engineering and science, so the reach school theory does not make a lot of sense.

A friend of mine said in his child's high school only one Korean girl was accepted by MIT although there are some (in his opinion) more qualified students.
I know one female who was accepted to MIT, her father was my coworker, she was top student and also top artist. She got accepted to all the UCs with Regents, proof she’s top candidat every where, not just at MIT. Btw, all her sister graduated from top UCs with very high GPA like 3.9 and above, she’s the only one that was accepted to MIT. So the quality is much higher for female applicants.
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Old 03-15-2019, 12:46 PM
 
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Originally Posted by NewbieHere View Post
I know one female who was accepted to MIT, her father was my coworker, she was top student and also top artist. She got accepted to all the UCs with Regents, proof she’s top candidat every where, not just at MIT. Btw, all her sister graduated from top UCs with very high GPA like 3.9 and above, she’s the only one that was accepted to MIT. So the quality is much higher for female applicants.
I'm sure she's very good, but your last sentence is not supported by evidence you provided. We still don't know about the male candidates.

MIT is the best school for engineering, so they always get top candidates such as gold medalists of international math Olympiad.
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Old 03-15-2019, 12:52 PM
 
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Originally Posted by Mr. Zero View Post
The aggressive/conservative “reach” theory supposes that if you have male and female B+ students who are both unlikely to get into MIT, the B+ male students may be more encouraged to “take a shot” at MIT, while the B+ female students may be discouraged from applying altogether. If that were the case, you would have a much larger percentage of male applicants than female applicants, but the male applicant pool would be more diluted overall. In this example, I used grades, but the populations could also differ regarding extracurriculars, research, etc.

Again, this is just conjecture.
OK that may be an explanation, but it is still unclear why 46% of all accepted students are female.

In America, women are less likely to choose STEM majors (no matter what the reason is). It is also true that males perform better in their careers as scientists and engineers on average (again no matter what the reason is).
So I would expect most accepted students are men.
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Old 03-15-2019, 01:37 PM
 
Location: NY/LA
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Originally Posted by Bettafish View Post
OK that may be an explanation, but it is still unclear why 46% of all accepted students are female.

In America, women are less likely to choose STEM majors (no matter what the reason is). It is also true that males perform better in their careers as scientists and engineers on average (again no matter what the reason is).
So I would expect most accepted students are men.
There are still more accepted male students than female. I would also posit that the numbers of male and female acceptances are closer to 50/50 than the number of applications because MIT is so highly selective.

If we presume that MIT is the top choice for STEM high school students (ignoring CalTech, Stanford, etc.), and MIT’s freshman class is about 1100 students, all that matters is the following: are the top 550 male candidates in the country about equal (or not equal) with the top 550 female candidates in the country? Does it matter if more males are interested in STEM, or if 4000 more male candidates apply than female candidates, if you’re only interested in the cream of the crop?

I think at the very top, there’s more parity than you think (especially with the upcoming generation). The 40 finalists of the 2019 Regeneron Science Talent Search (formerly known as the Intel Science Talent Search and the Westinghouse Science Talent Search before that) were just announced, and I believe the breakdown was 22 male, 18 female finalists.

https://student.societyforscience.or...2019-finalists

Last edited by Mr. Zero; 03-15-2019 at 01:52 PM..
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Old 03-15-2019, 01:45 PM
 
Location: 912 feet above sea level
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Originally Posted by Bettafish View Post
OK that may be an explanation, but it is still unclear why 46% of all accepted students are female.

In America, women are less likely to choose STEM majors (no matter what the reason is). It is also true that males perform better in their careers as scientists and engineers on average (again no matter what the reason is).
So I would expect most accepted students are men.
Most MIT majors are STEM in nature. In goes without saying that most females applying to MIT are interested in pursuing a STEM course of study. That in the greater public females are less likely to pursue a STEM major than males is irrelevant.

And why a university would factor in that a gender 'performs better in their careers' (meaning what? gets most of the promotions? makes more money?) in determining who gets admitted is beyond me.

MIT reports that graduating females have higher GPAs than graduating males.
They report than a higher percentage of females graduate within six year than males.
MIT reports that surveys show that females enrolled at MIT are more likely than males to think that they are 'less capable' than their peers at MIT, despite females performing better overall than males (this is very suggestive of the idea that only particularly qualified female high school students are likely to possess the confidence to pursue acceptance to MIT).
http://diversity.mit.edu/wp-content/...rgradWomen.pdf
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Old 03-15-2019, 02:21 PM
 
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Originally Posted by Hulsker 1856 View Post
Most MIT majors are STEM in nature. In goes without saying that most females applying to MIT are interested in pursuing a STEM course of study. That in the greater public females are less likely to pursue a STEM major than males is irrelevant.
It is relevant, because it may suggest that top female students (who are good at math and physics) are still likely to avoid engineering but go for other majors (e.g. finance) in other top universities.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hulsker 1856 View Post
And why a university would factor in that a gender 'performs better in their careers' (meaning what? gets most of the promotions? makes more money?) in determining who gets admitted is beyond me.
Many ways to do evaluation: Nobel laureates, distinguished professors, positions in companies, median income...

Universities always keep future performance in mind. And they use such "excuses" to reject students with low "people skills", for example. I am not arguing it is legitimate or not, but it does exist. In fact I want the admissions to be as objective as possible.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Hulsker 1856 View Post
MIT reports that graduating females have higher GPAs than graduating males.
They report than a higher percentage of females graduate within six year than males.
MIT reports that surveys show that females enrolled at MIT are more likely than males to think that they are 'less capable' than their peers at MIT, despite females performing better overall than males (this is very suggestive of the idea that only particularly qualified female high school students are likely to possess the confidence to pursue acceptance to MIT).
http://diversity.mit.edu/wp-content/...rgradWomen.pdf
OK, women have higher GPAs is a legitimate argument.
However I would like to know other measures too (contests, publications, outstanding graduates...) I think in almost all American universities, women have higher GPAs on average.
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