A holistic review of gender differences in engineering admissions and early retention

World-wide research continues to seek to identify the reasons for the underrepresentation of women in engineering. This work is primarily focused on two broad areas: pre-college preparation, exposure and experiences (recruiting), and higher education experiences (retention). Many programs and practices have been implemented incorporating the results of these studies. The university admissions process is also a gateway to engineering, but little has been done to understand if this process is gender biased. A nonparametric statistical analysis of several cohorts of applications and admission results in the College of Engineering at a large U.S. Midwestern University compares the medians of common admissions metrics (e.g. high school grade point averages, class rank, standardized test scores) of men and women. The data indicate that, in practice, admission may be biased against women. In exploring ways to reduce gender bias in the admissions process, a study of academic performance and self-reported affective measures were modelled using retention and graduation as outcomes. Though first year men and women report similar levels of each success measure, the relative importance of each measure in predicting retention was different for men and women. Because of the data-based nature and the breadth of this work, these results have been used to inform changes in admissions practices on the studied campus. A more gender neutral set of admissions practices is essential for gender parity in engineering, particularly in light of recent research which suggests recruiting women into engineering is a larger issue than retaining women to graduation.