<p>Yes, you read that right. </p>
<p>Statistically speaking, women who apply to engineering programmes have higher GPAs and SAT math scores. </p>
<p>Huh? But everyone says…</p>
<p>Yes, there are fewer women who apply, but those who do apply are more qualified than the men who apply. Women who are accepted into engineering likewise have better stats than their male counterparts. Social scientists think that women need the validation of the high stats to think they can handle the curriculum, ask for recs with a straight face, and to believe that they have a shot - while men will just apply because engineering is so manly and macho or whatever.</p>
<p>Generally, people see the lower numbers of women in engineering and assume that it’s easier to get in - but the mistake is in conflating two different phenomena: size of applicant pool and quality of applicant pool. Fewer women, yes; but those that are there are more qualified, on the average, than the men. </p>
<p>Finally, women engineers tend to have higher grades than their male counterparts.</p>