Are there more females in physics or engineering?

Applying to College
1

<p>Also, which major is more competitive for females?</p>

2

<p>At many schools where admission selectivity varies by major, engineering is generally more competitive than physics (regardless of gender). However, this is not necessarily true universally.</p>

<p>Both majors have relatively low numbers of female students, especially compared to majors like biology and psychology.</p>

3

<p>Does the competition vary depending on which type of engineering it is?</p>

4

<p>It can – it depends on the school whether specific major change admissions selectivity.</p>

5

<p>At my school, Illinois Institute of Technology, the number of female physics majors is about 27% or so. This is a bit higher than the average for our engineering disciplines as a whole (25%) but those numbers are not distributed evenly. For last academic year, the numbers for the Engineering departments were</p>

<p>Biological and Chemical Engineering 39%
Biomedical Engineering 50%
Civil and Architectural Engineering 33%
Computer Science 14%
Electrical and Computer Engineering 14%
Mechanical, Materials and Aerospace Engineering 16%</p>

<p>Clearly, the answer to your first question depends on the specific area of engineering. as to the competitiveness for admissions, I suppose that those where women are very low would welcome applicants but my guess is that that is not a huge effect.</p>