While IB courses may have the rigor, they do not necessarily have more advanced material than AP courses (math and physics being examples if you look at subject credit and advanced placement offered by US universities).
The sometimes-limited selection of HL versus SL courses does mean that those considering an IB program need to check whether the offered HL versus SL courses are a good match for the student’s strengths and interests.
[quote=“ucbalumnus, post:41, topic:3690802”] if you look at subject credit and advanced placement offered by US universities).
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Unfortunately, that’s true. While it varies by subject, the SL material and class is often similar to AP, but most colleges only give credit for HL. And they often require quite high scores.
The students at our school who took the AP exams after Chem SL and Spanish SL all did very well. Their reason for taking the AP was to get credit/placement in college – a response to the problem you have noted.
Girls have a big advantage in admissions to engineering programs because so few are interested in this field. I’d take engineering acceptance rates with a big grain of sale for@ female applicant.
Really? What sort of data is out there to show this, and at which schools does it matter? I have a D26 applying to engineering programs, and I was under the impression that most schools don’t take gender into account in admissions, but I would be glad to be wrong…
I don’t have data, but I have seen multiple colleges set targets for increasing the enrollment of female students. For example RPI set a target of 50:50 male:female ratio by 2030. MIT, of all places, where they should have their pick of the best candidates, was hanging out banners a few years ago when they got one department (ME) to 50:50. Overall (not just engineering) MIT was 52:48 make:female ratio when nationally females are about 58% of all college students. The last time I looked, females were 22% of all engineering students nationally.
I don’t know that there’s any way to find out what policies admissions offices are using to exercise gender preference in engineering admissions if at all. But I think that the numbers speak for themselves. At a minimum, given the relatively small number of females applying to engineering majors, it’s highly likely that acceptance rates for female are higher even when held to a high standard.
There was a big discussion a few years ago about MIT specifically. This is the quote from their dean: “Our applicant pool is very deep with excellent men and women applicants,” MIT’s dean of admissions, Stu Schmill, told The Post. “The data don’t show that it is easier to be admitted as a woman applicant — that would only be true if our male and female applicant pools were equivalent. But the women who apply are a more self-selecting group. “Therefore, while the number of women applicants is smaller, the quality is extremely high. This is why we are able to enroll a very gender-balanced class, with all students meeting the same high academic and personal standards, and why women do just as well if not better once here at MIT.”
At one point my S22’s school (WPI) gave higher merit awards to female students. Apparently there was a benefactress who was giving the school lots of money to encourage increased female enrollment. Because there are fewer female engineering candidates than males, the conventional wisdom (e.g. I have no data) is that the schools are trying to balance their classes the best they can, so ALL the engineering schools are fighting over the best females; there just aren’t enough qualified girls to go around. So one way to compete was to offer money. WPI never outright said that, but it was clear, from the discussions on the parents facebook page, that female applicants were getting more than males on average. Then the benefactress died, and she hadn’t put the donation to WPI in her will. So three years ago the extra $$ for women dried up. Since then the percentage of incoming students that are female has decreased. Is it coincidence? Is it because now they can’t offer as much money as maybe an RPI or similar? Who knows. I think schools would like to achieve as close to a balanced gender split as possible - and this is true for liberal arts schools too, where there seem to be more qualified women applying and then entering than men.
So I have no real data, but from watching this for a few years now, it feels like being a qualified engineering applicant who happens to be female is only a bonus.
“ALL engineering schools” seems like an over claim, since many engineering schools are not that selective and are not normally on the radar of top applicants.
Here’s some data, male vs female acceptance rates taken from common data sets of a hand full of colleges:
MIT - 3.6% for males vs 7.0% for females
MIT is not exclusively an engineering school and in fact has quite a few other departments. So here are a few more at various levels of selectivity which are heavily - although not exclusively engineering:
Cal Tech - 1.8% for males vs 4.3% for females
Harvey Mudd - 8.6% for males vs 21% for females
Stevens Tech - 41% for males vs 56% for females
Colorado Mines - 54.5% for males vs 65.6% for females
Admission rates can only be considered in the context of applicant and admit strength. If more male applicants with weaker admission credentials apply, they could reduce the male admission rates.
Of course. Take them for what they’re worth. But in every case, chance of admission - without knowing anything else about the applicant pool - is greater for women. In addition, the women are competing in a smaller pool of applicants
You listed primarily engineering / STEM schools, but lots of important engineering programs are located within large universities (arguably, some of the best such programs). Is there evidence that such large universities are preferentially admitting women to their engineering programs?
Did you read Stu Schmill’s quote that momofboiler posted a few posts before this?
Here’s the gist, and I would expect the situation is similar at some other predominantly engineering schools:
And in a case like MIT’s, it is plausible something like twice as many not-really-competitive male applicants as opposed to female applicants apply?
I find that plausible, personally. Of course I have no idea how it really shakes out, but just when I encounter people applying to MIT where I question if they are really competitive for MIT, given everything MIT has said about admissions–it does feel to me like that happens more often with males. Again, that is not remotely conclusive, but I am just suggesting it could well be true.
That’s exactly what Stu Schmill is saying in his quotes that momofboiler posted.
I listed schools which are primarily STEM/Engineering because the male:female data are their common data sets reflect what admissions look like for a STEM/Engineering population. We don’t have access to that same information for schools or departments of engineering at large universities.
This is super interesting. My daughter actually isn’t willing to consider some of the “tech” schools like RPI, RIT, etc because of the gender imbalance. Although she knows there will still be imbalance in her classes, she prefers attending a school like Cornell, Michigan, Clemson etc where the overall student population will be balanced….
Yes, I read Stu Scmill’s quote before I posted. Stu doesn’t provide any data, so I just have to take his word for it. He may just be putting his own spin on it. I have no way of knowing that. If his quote is for marketing purposes, then take it for what it’s worth.
Sample size of one big school with strong engineering - you can go here: https://udc.vt.edu/irdata/data/students/admission/index#college and see Virginia Tech admissions data, sorted by college to which students applied, gender, instate and out of state etc. You can sort by major, but all engineering majors are College of Engineering at admission, so not as relevant as, say, English versus biology, which are both College of Arts and Sciences.
Overall admission for 24-25 year was 54.7%
Admission to engineering - 54.4% of applicants were offered admission (this is 11,591 out of 21,310 applicants)
Of those admitted to engineering, 61.3% of women who applied were accepted (3260 out of 5322); 52% of men who applied were accepted (8266 out of 15,886).
For In-State applicants to the school of Engineering, 52.5% of applicants were accepted.
Of those in-state applicants, 58.3% of female applicants were accepted; 50.5% of male applicants were accepted.
For OOS applicants, 55% overall of OOS applicants to the college of engineering were accepted.
Of OOS applicants to college of engineering, 62.3% of female applicants were accepted; 52.5% of male applicants were accepted
South Dakota School of Mines and Technology had in 2022 a male admit rate of 54.5% and a female admit rate of 65.6%.
But its listed admission requirements are rather baseline (2.75 HS GPA or GED plus some level of math readiness), as described here: Admissions Requirements . Is it likely that they are favoring female applicants for admission?