<p>it has been claimed previously in this thread that only 2/500 USAMO qualifiers last year were female. This is false. Out of 268 USAMO qualifiers 252 were male, 12 were female, and 4 were gender unknown [source:<a href=“American Mathematics Competitions | Mathematical Association of America”>American Mathematics Competitions | Mathematical Association of America][/url</a>]. Granted that’s still very skewed but it’s the 249:1 ratio claimed previously. USAJMO had about 2.5 times as females and previous years also had a somewhat higher proportion of female USAMO qualifiers as well.</p>
<p>72% of MIT math majors [including 18C but excluding double majors] are male though which is not that different from the above results. This should raise serious questions about any attempt to link the gender distribution at MIT with the results of nationwide math competitions.</p>