females in MSTP?

[passion4atcg]

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Is it true that females have an advantage in the admission process for MD/PhD? for the females, what has been your experiences in the application process?

 

[mjs]

Is it true that females have an advantage in the admission process for MD/PhD?

I've never heard anyone say that. Where'd you hear it?

 

[jjmack]

I've never heard anyone say that. Where'd you hear it?

in all sciences there is a push to increase the number of females. I think it may help get an interview, but I think you still need to know your stuff.

 

[passion4atcg]

I've never heard anyone say that. Where'd you hear it?

on all the MSTP websites it quotes females as minorities and says they want to increase the number of females.

 

[beary]

I'm a female MSTP and haven't really noticed any advantage or discrimination. My class is 50/50 but the class behind me is 100% guys. I think most of the classes after that are approximately equal, and it seems like the applicants are approximately equal as well. I don't know any numbers, that is just my gut.

 

[neoserenity333]

I believe (though I don't have the hard statistics on hand to back it up) that there are more male applicants than female applicants, and that overall there tends to be more male MSTP students than female students (if one averages out across the years). Thus, there doesn't seem to be an advantage offered to female applicants.

All the interviews I attended were either 1:1 or higher male:female ratio (highest was 9M:2F at one interview). I'm not seeing a great or even minute advantage here; I would say, in fact, that there are still disadvantages to being a female applicant. I had multiple interviewers at various schools slip in the family/raising kids issue--presuming things about me that they probably wouldn't of a guy. Though, of course, they're not allowed to ask me my personal plans directly (that would be formal discrimination 🙄 ).

I personally think there are more obstacles than advantages to being a female MSTP applicant, but in the end, if you're good, you're good. impress them with your knowledge and abilities, not your gender.

 

[tr]

I believe (though I don't have the hard statistics on hand to back it up) that there are more male applicants than female applicants, and that overall there tends to be more male MSTP students than female students (if one averages out across the years). Thus, there doesn't seem to be an advantage offered to female applicants.

I see they have taken the NIGMS study off the web, but I do recall the approximate numbers from that. Males were something like 68% of the applicant pool, and something like 72% of the matriculant pool in 1998 when the study was published. That might mean either that women are being slightly discriminated against or that they tend to be slightly less qualified. No way to know.

I would say, in fact, that there are still disadvantages to being a female applicant. I had multiple interviewers at various schools slip in the family/raising kids issue--presuming things about me that they probably wouldn't of a guy.

Well, like it or not, biology and society combine to stick women with more of the family duties. So it is something to think about if you haven't already. I think your interviewers are doing you a favor to mention it; although not if they let it affect their evaluation of your app.

In answer to the OP's question, I was told by the program director at Duke when I interviewed that he was committed to increasing the proportion of women in the program, and that the ratio there was 50/50. Since the applicant pool there was presumably in the range of 70/30 the way it was everywhere else at that time, that suggests some pretty strong skewing by the admissions people at Duke. This is the only case I know of where there was a specific push to increase the representation of women. Of course that was very long ago, and I don't know what the current numbers are anywhere.

I do know that most institutions that offer MSTPs sink a good amount of their own effort and funding into supporting them, and they want to get the best possible matriculants. Since the pools are so small, it doesn't really seem as if it would behoove the program to dedicate extra slots for the purpose of increasing the proportion of women from 25% to 50%. This is especially true if women are more likely than men to drop off the research track for family reasons (as they are known to do throughout the postgraduate science cursus).

 

[tr]

Addendum: A study quoted in one of the other threads on the board has more recent data for the participation of women in MD/PhD programs:

"...the fraction of MD-PhD students who are women has increased markedly during the past 7 years (from 27% of the total in 1997 to 41% in 2005)."

So it looks as if my outdated information really was quite outdated. The reference is
Ley and Rosenberg, JAMA 294 (11):1343
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/294/11/1343

On an unrelated tangent, there is an interesting exchange between two readers who argue that MD/PhD training is not worth the time investment, and the authors of the study, who claim that age at asst prof. and age at RO1/R29 are similar between MD/PhD and MD only investigators (39/38 asst prof and 43/44 RO1 😱 )

Richard L. Haspel; Jason R. Orlinick
Physician-Scientist Training
JAMA, February 8, 2006; 295: 623.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/295/6/623

Timothy J. Ley; Leon Rosenberg
Physician-Scientist Training—Reply
JAMA, February 8, 2006; 295: 623 - 624.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/295/6/623-a

This suggests that you have to put your time in somewhere: if it isn't in graduate work, it will probably be in an extra long postdoc (or two). 🙁