Caltech, long a bastion of male students, enrolls first class of majority women • Hacker News Board

Re: Caltech, long a bastion of male students, enrolls first class of majority women

#61

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 27, 2024, 4:33 PM UTC

yergi wrote: post #43

mchannon wrote: post #24

This is a third rail of conversation, regarding gender equality and equity, so please hold your downvotes if you differ from my positions. Some might value the perspective, and I feel we all could learn something here. I can guarantee you that way more men applied to Caltech than women did. That means the most talented and impressive young man who applied and didn’t get in is objectively more talented and impressive…

It's very VERY bad for women if you REALLY think about it from a perspective where life and death are on the line. Think about it: You need brain surgery to remove a tumor. You have a slim chance of surviving the procedure. Maybe your doctor is there in that position ONLY because they are the best. But, MAYBE they are only there based purely upon some non-skill based factor as well. Do you take that chance? No. You d…

[deleted]

Re: Caltech, long a bastion of male students, enrolls first class of majority women

#62

Post by eigenket » Tue, Aug 27, 2024, 4:33 PM UTC

mchannon wrote: post #24

This is a third rail of conversation, regarding gender equality and equity, so please hold your downvotes if you differ from my positions. Some might value the perspective, and I feel we all could learn something here. I can guarantee you that way more men applied to Caltech than women did. That means the most talented and impressive young man who applied and didn’t get in is objectively more talented and impressive…

> This also means that on average, a man on campus is more qualified to be there than a woman on campus

This does not follow from what you wrote before. I think it would if equivalently talented men and women were equally likely to apply to Caltech. This does not seem to be the case, since as you say not as many women are applying.

I'm going to make up some numbers for an analogous problem which might make the logic more clear. Let's say the top 50% of men in a year apply to some university, while only the top 10% of women apply. Assume there is some randomness in the admissions process (because frankly there is), then a randomly sampled woman who was admitted is likely to be a stronger candidate than an average man who was admitted.

Re: Caltech, long a bastion of male students, enrolls first class of majority women

#63

Post by g15jv2dp » Tue, Aug 27, 2024, 4:34 PM UTC

mchannon wrote: post #24

This is a third rail of conversation, regarding gender equality and equity, so please hold your downvotes if you differ from my positions. Some might value the perspective, and I feel we all could learn something here. I can guarantee you that way more men applied to Caltech than women did. That means the most talented and impressive young man who applied and didn’t get in is objectively more talented and impressive…

> I can guarantee you that way more men applied to Caltech than women did.

You cannot guarantee that. Show some data or don't say anything.

> That means the most talented and impressive young man who applied and didn’t get in is objectively more talented and impressive than the least talented and impressive (though still extremely talented and impressive) woman who applied and got in.

This doesn't follow. If women self-censor (not sure how to say it in English correctly) their applications in such a way that only top women dare applying, while men don't, then no, it's not true that the men who didn't get in are more talented than the women who didn't get in. I'm not speaking in hypothetical, this is what actually happens - see e.g., Bosquet C., Combes P-P., García‐Peñalosa C., 2019, « Gender and Promotions: Evidence from Academic Economists in France », Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 121 (3), 1020-1053 or https://lejournal.cnrs.fr/nos-blogs/dialogues-economiques/pl...

The rest of your comment is based on faulty premises so I won't bother replying point by point.

Re: Caltech, long a bastion of male students, enrolls first class of majority women

#64

Post by mchannon » Tue, Aug 27, 2024, 4:34 PM UTC

caddemon wrote: post #42

mchannon wrote: post #24

This is a third rail of conversation, regarding gender equality and equity, so please hold your downvotes if you differ from my positions. Some might value the perspective, and I feel we all could learn something here. I can guarantee you that way more men applied to Caltech than women did. That means the most talented and impressive young man who applied and didn’t get in is objectively more talented and impressive…

I don't think it's purely an optics thing. College is a community not just school. Do you want all your social groups, living area, etc. to be 75+% male as a college student?

Given the option as an 18-yo male I’d probably opt for 5% male, but that’s strictly a matter of personal preference, and not a basis for admissions.

I endured 75+% male and didn’t particularly enjoy it, but that’s not why I attended my similarly-sized engineering college. I went for the education and rigor.

Caltech is and has always been about hardcore study. It’s not a cotillion. At least it didn’t used to be.

Re: Caltech, long a bastion of male students, enrolls first class of majority women

#65

Post by sagarm » Tue, Aug 27, 2024, 4:35 PM UTC

mchannon wrote: post #24

This is a third rail of conversation, regarding gender equality and equity, so please hold your downvotes if you differ from my positions. Some might value the perspective, and I feel we all could learn something here. I can guarantee you that way more men applied to Caltech than women did. That means the most talented and impressive young man who applied and didn’t get in is objectively more talented and impressive…

As a group, girls outperform boys in school. By this simple model, men are statistically unqualified for every job. Seems a little unfair to men, but those are the facts.

All models are wrong; some are useful.

Re: Caltech, long a bastion of male students, enrolls first class of majority women

#66

Post by BenFranklin100 » Tue, Aug 27, 2024, 4:35 PM UTC

riffic wrote: post #51

klipt wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have humans fundamentally changed since 50 years ago? Was there something fundamentally wrong with women 50 years ago that we "fixed"?

societal roles and expectations have certainly changed.

[flagged]

Re: Caltech, long a bastion of male students, enrolls first class of majority women

#67

Post by nickpeterson » Tue, Aug 27, 2024, 4:36 PM UTC

pseudosavant wrote: post #50

mchannon wrote: post #24

This is a third rail of conversation, regarding gender equality and equity, so please hold your downvotes if you differ from my positions. Some might value the perspective, and I feel we all could learn something here. I can guarantee you that way more men applied to Caltech than women did. That means the most talented and impressive young man who applied and didn’t get in is objectively more talented and impressive…

It is funny how you take as a default fact that the male students (and even rejected applicants) are smarter and more talented than female students without a single shred of data.

One big problem in their theory is it assumes that men and women have an equal opinion of themselves, but that’s seldom true. The numbers tell us that many more men believe themselves qualified to attend caltech, not much more ;)

Re: Caltech, long a bastion of male students, enrolls first class of majority women

#68

Post by eigenket » Tue, Aug 27, 2024, 4:36 PM UTC

HideousKojima wrote: post #48

lawlessone wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That means the most talented and impressive young man who applied and didn’t get in is objectively more talented and impressive than the least talented and impressive (though still extremely talented and impressive) woman who applied and got in. Prove it.

Unless the pool of female applicants was way more qualified than the male pool (i.e. by several standard deviations) this is true as a simple matter of statistics.

It seems quite likely that this is the case. We know a bunch more men than women are applying, and a reasonable prior is that an average woman is about as good a candidate as an average man. Therefore there seem to be a bunch of women who aren't applying who would have applied if they were equivalently qualified males.

Re: Caltech, long a bastion of male students, enrolls first class of majority women

#69

Post by g15jv2dp » Tue, Aug 27, 2024, 4:36 PM UTC

b112 wrote: post #57

g15jv2dp wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women don't go to university to enter your personal dating pool.

Actually, the parent didn't say their personal dating pool, did they? They spoke generically. They also didn't say men would even ask anyone out, are you being sexist, and assuming men always ask, and women do not? And unless 20 year olds have changed dramatically, everyone is looking for new dating pools. Or are you suggesting women don't have a sex drive, and should be chaste?

> They also didn't say men would even ask anyone out, are you being sexist, and assuming men always ask, and women do not?

Not remotely related to what I said.

> Or are you suggesting women don't have a sex drive, and should be chaste?

Not remotely related to what I said.

Why do you feel the need to make stuff up?

Re: Caltech, long a bastion of male students, enrolls first class of majority women

#70

Post by disentanglement » Tue, Aug 27, 2024, 4:37 PM UTC

mchannon wrote: post #24

This is a third rail of conversation, regarding gender equality and equity, so please hold your downvotes if you differ from my positions. Some might value the perspective, and I feel we all could learn something here. I can guarantee you that way more men applied to Caltech than women did. That means the most talented and impressive young man who applied and didn’t get in is objectively more talented and impressive…

Coming from a country where the sort of super selective universities like Caltech don't exist, the fierce debates about equality of admissions to these sort of places never made sense to me.

If Caltech, Harvard, MIT or wherever really were committed about advancing gender inequality, why not just raise the numbers of students and admit more people? The number of students is mainly limited artificially and there's no reason they can't educate both men and women who apply.