<p>At my university when they split up the College of Arts and Sciences into the College of Social Sciences and Humanities and the College of Science, they opted to put psychology in the College of Science. I am also a mentor for a STEM program for freshmen/sophomores encouraging them to get involved in science research. This includes units by professors in physics, math, chemistry, biology, and psychology. Some psychology is much less “scientific,” (think Freud), but a lot of psychology today is an experimental science. Don’t be so quick to discount it as a science until you have seen some of the research going on in the field.</p>
<p>As for the STEM advantages for females, this mostly does go for fields in which females are under-represented. This means physics, math, chemistry, engineering, CS. In fields where women already have very strong representations, like biology and psychology, there will be less of this, if you are talking college admissions. However, I think any perceived “bonuses” for being female in these areas are small in most cases. If you are looking past college, though, women are under-represented in these fields across the board in research and academia, but you can’t expect your gender to push you over the edge for graduate school admissions.</p>