Is it a hook to be a female going into engineering?

Applying to College
12

<p>I made a faux pas recently on the MIT discussion board. I had noticed that MIT’s acceptance rate for females (15.7%) was more than twice their acceptance rate for males (7.6%) on their Common Data Set. I then questioned whether this meant that acceptance criteria was lower for females than for males.</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/1370030-astonished-common-data-set.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/1370030-astonished-common-data-set.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>The responses were sharply critical of my implication. Posters pointed to a significantly higher rate of self-selection among females - i.e. far more unqualified applicants were male than female. The posters were adamant that admissions criteria were identical for males and females.</p>

<p>Apparently this topic surfaces periodically on both the MIT and CalTech boards to the great consternation of their regulars.</p>

<p>Based on the responses I received, apparently females do not receive any benefit in admission criteria when applying to engineering programs.</p>