<p>I have interviewed many students over the years that I have been an EC, and from my limited perspective, the self-selection is the key factor. I have interviewed several exceptional girls and some exceptional boys, and at the top end, there is not much to choose between them. However, at the bottom end, things are very different. </p>
<p>I have interviewed many more uncompetitive boys than I have uncompetitive girls. I see many, many more boys who apply to MIT, almost at whim, with no reasonable prospect of acceptance, than I see girls. Almost all of the girls are competitive.</p>
<p>I might be a little cynical here. So many arguments suggest that girls are academically stronger than boys because girl applicants have higher admission rates year after year. But when you look at the female faculty composition in MIT, it is around 17% in school of engineering and similar % in school of sciences, a far cry from its student body and the general population. In some departments female faculty number can be counted in one hand. When you look at the supporting and administrative staffs, you do find disproportion numbers of female names there. Does this mean in the highest level of science and engineering, men happen to be better than women? An alternative explanation for this is that the old boy system in MIT prefers men over women. If former is true, girls’ potential may be overrated. If latter is true, MIT would be a hypocrite.</p>
It’s a complex issue, and one that is a concern to many people in academic science and engineering. The problem seems not to be female aptitude, and it doesn’t really seem to be active discrimination (at least not in major part). It’s not that women aren’t competitive for top-level faculty positions. </p>
<p>A large share of the blame is given to the academic lifestyle – that being a top-level scientist or engineer requires a huge commitment of time and energy, which is not trivially compatible with raising a family. There are many programs starting to be put in place at schools around the country (more on-campus childcare slots for faculty, a one- or two-year break in the tenure clock for faculty members who have children, etc.), but it’s too early to say which of them might be effective at stopping the “leaky pipeline” of women flowing out of academia.</p>
<p>I would think it’s the same in medicine – that more female medical school graduates choose “lifestyle specialties” not because they don’t have the aptitude or the USMLE scores, nor because the good old boys in the department don’t want any dames around to spoil the fun, but because they see life-consuming specialties as incompatible with having a family.</p>
<p>a lot of it is time delay too. women outnumber men in math degrees awarded per year across the country if i recall correctly. yet because that is a relatively recent trend, there is lag in the top PhD programs, and then you figure a decade or so to build the sort of career that leads you to be a professor at a place like MIT. </p>
<p>point is there are a huge number of factors and it’s all incredibly complex and it boils down to: we have really smart girls who apply to MIT and we admit a lot of them because they are awesome.</p>
<p>As a parent, I am sad to see some of these postings about women applicants. That will hurt potential women applicants to MIT. I can show some light here, Top 3 students from my daughter’s HS are girls, who are all applying to MIT along with so many other boys. MIT admissions will have a clear choice here right. I firmly believe MIT admissions does a fair evaluations on the candidates/applicants. Nothing else. If you’re the right fit to MIT, you get in. That’s it.</p>
<p>Umm… of the 500 USAMO Qualifiers 2 were women this year… yet somehow MIT purports they have a stronger pool of female applicants. I find that very hard to believe.</p>
<p>Of the applicant pool, it is likely that the top 5% of males and females (the category in which the 500 USAMO qualifiers fall) are roughly equal. Today, it might actually be the case that this is tipped slightly in favor of men.</p>
<p>However, I’m almost positive that the bottom 50% of guys will be far less qualified than their female counterpart. Guys are more likely to apply “for the hell of it”. Guys are more likely to have an inflated self-esteem. The percentage of admissible females in the applicant pool is probably near a 100, I don’t know what the figure would be for guys but I think it will be a good deal less.</p>
<p>Go on google, you’ll see 498 were men 2 were women. MIT is practicing affirmative action by admitting a higher frequency of women than would be natural.</p>
You just restated what you said in the previous post and didn’t seem to understand what I said. In extremely high-end math competitions men have consistently done better (for what reason, I don’t know). That is nothing new.</p>
<p>USAMO qualifiers – the top 500, appx youth mathematicians in the country – represent one small sliver of MIT’s almost 20,000 applicants.</p>
<p>I don’t know in what world the statistics for USAMO can be extrapolated to the admissions pool at large. It’s like saying hey, look, Exeter sends half its class to Ivies, that must mean my school can also perform that well, or else they’re affirmatively preferring the other school.</p>
<p>I am pretty sure the bottom 50% of male applicants will be worse than the bottom 50% of female applicants.</p>
<p>On average, the two pools might be pretty similar, but the male pool will have a higher standard deviation (noted by Larry Summers), which means they might have more of the brilliant mathematicians, but they’ll also have more of the kids who have absolutely no shot.</p>
<p>More importantly, men are more likely to think that they will get in when they don’t stand a shot. Higher self-esteem is an empirically noted fact. And from my anecdotal experience I have seen many more men apply “for the hell of it” than women, who are much more methodical and organized about the whole thing.</p>
<p>Also, please note I’m not saying guys are better than girls at math. Just at the high school level they are disproportionately represented at the top percentiles. </p>
<p>It’s absolutely absurd to not believe MIT quoting that statistic you use, though.</p>
<p>I am not sure I understand the relationship between winners in math competitions to admission to MIT. Engineering requires strong math skills, but engineers also need creativity to solve new problems. Engineering is an “application” of the concepts whether it be physics or mathematics or chemistry.</p>
<p>Not everyone at MIT is an engineering major. Since many plan on being math majors, it might be argued that USAMO qualification could be a useful to look at. I would like to point out that anecdotally, I was surprised to see how little USAMO qualification by itself predicted performance in math classes here (I’m taking about math classes other than 18.01/2/3/6).</p>
<p>I am not sure I understand the relationship between winners in math competitions to admission to MIT. Engineering requires strong math skills, but engineers also need creativity to solve new problems. Engineering is an “application” of the concepts whether it be physics or mathematics or chemistry.
<p>MATHCOUNTS, the toughest and most popular math competition for middle schoolers, is hosted by National Society of Professional Engineers.</p>
<p>I just spent a very enjoyable hour reading a 35-page thread that discusses many of the types of issues mentioned here, but with at least some insightful analysis on all sides. As an added bonus, collegealum314 and I were much feistier five years ago. Mikalye continues to be just as feisty.</p>
<p>I signed up for notifications of this thread yesterday and just got the daily update (may be not a great idea)</p>
<h2>Thanks Molly for the old but new again thread pointer. I have to copy your quote in one of the posts. I like how you put it - pointless, flame-filled (that really stopped me from going on a rant)</h2>
<h2>The last time we all gathered together to have a pointless, flame-filled argument like this one (well, maybe not the last time – it’s hard to keep track), I made the point that it would be nice to be able to stick a thermometer in everybody’s head and measure exactly how much merit is in there, but unfortunately, it’s not possible.</h2>
<p>frtian: I didn’t realize that it was hosted by National Society of Professional Engineers. Thanks for posting that information. I heard about mathcounts only recently, wish I had known about it before. </p>
<p>shravas: How many math majors are accepted each year? I couldn’t find the information. Curious about the percentage of math majors to engineering majors.</p>
(that really stopped me from going on a rant)</h2>