<p>I have heard of a couple of kids who got likely calls/letters and invitations to YES weekend. Both of them happen to be girls. </p>
<p>Is it true that Yale invites to YES weekend are predominantly girls (for the science majors).</p>
<p>There was this kid in my school last year who was extremely well qualified to receive likely/YES visit invite. He had the same experience with another girl from our school getting the invite (over him) even though his credentials/essays were far superior. </p>
<p>It annoyed him, and he eventually choose to go to MIT because of this experience(over Yale which gave him an accept later)</p>
<p>Isn’t Yale worried about loosing high caliber kids with the way they handle this?</p>
<p>I understand what you mean, but not getting a likely shouldn’t discourage matriculation. I mean…nobody’s entitled to a likely. At the same time, a top science student may feel slighted. I think it may also depend on specified major, as bio majors may be less likely to receive a letter just because it isn’t as underrepresented at Yale.</p>
<p>Yale is targeting STEM majors and it looks like each department gets to select some likelies. At least two mentioned they got picked for Computer Science and one mentioned Biomedical Engineering. So being more qualified in one area than another candidate within your school is not necessary grounds to assume a gender bias if they intended to major in totally different departments.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s gender-bias, however, you can tell that Yale DOES try hard to recruit female science students if you attended one of its information sessions (on the road). My son attended one (hosted by Yale Engineering) in the bay area, and I can say that if your are a girl in that session, you would love to attend Yale engineering at the end of it. But I also think that that particular session also decrease my son’s interest quite a bit (though he still applied because of Yale’s strong liberal arts programs).</p>
<p>momof2happyboys - I attented one of the yale information sessions, and walked away with the same feeling. they were trying to attract more girls and were over doing it quite a bit.</p>
<p>I met a lot of the YES-W kids last year, and the gender ratio seemed relatively even, maybe skewed slightly toward the guys. </p>
<p>The admissions committee probably considers a whole host of factors when deciding who to send likelies to, and I wouldn’t be discouraged by not getting one. The classic admit weekend, bulldog days, is an amazing event :)</p>
<p>Also, I think the engineering info sessions are run by current students, and my friend told me he was basically given some statistics and told to speak from the heart about his own experiences. I would be guessing that whatever biases came out in that info session might be from the individual student giving the session. It’s unfortunate that he/she wasn’t able to address everyone’s points of view, but I would be happy to answer any guy-related science questions :)</p>
<p>^No, I believe it’s not intentionally gender-bias as I stated in my post#4. But yes, the info session was a bit uncomfortable since 80% of the time they talked about their efforts to find more brilliant female scientists when the room was 90% full of boys. </p>
<p>Personally I applause every school’s effort to recruit girls into STEM (myself was a Math major in college ), but maybe Yale can do it in a more sensitive way. I’m not sure the session my son attended was run by current students though, since there was no current student present, only professors and admission officers.</p>
<p>Maybe they intentionally focused on saying they wanted to find more females at the info session <em>because</em> the session was 90% boys (for those 10% of girls who may have been feeling “do I really belong?”) I know you said you were a math major, and I was (an am) an Engineering B.S./Ph.D. so I’m sure you recall how one can feel out of place when you are a conspicuous minority.</p>
), but maybe Yale can do it in a more sensitive way. I’m not sure the session my son attended was run by current students though, since there was no current student present, only professors and admission officers.</p>