The relatively modest -- but growing -- number of women at Caltech did not figure much in Hillary Walker's mind when she decided to enroll this fall as a freshman at the prestigious science and engineering campus in Pasadena.
But the 18-year-old physics student from Alaska was delighted to learn that she is part of a record-breaking uptick in the number of females at a school lampooned in the past as a place where extremely bright male scholars bonded more with microscopes than with members of the opposite sex.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday August 07, 2007 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 0 inches; 25 words Type of Material: Correction
Caltech enrollment: A story in Monday's California section said that there are 206 students in the freshman class entering Caltech in September. There are 235.
"I think it's wonderful. I'm always happy to see more women in science," said Walker, who chose Caltech over Princeton University and MIT because of what she described as the school's intimate size, research opportunities and friendly environment. Besides, she said, having more women on campus "might liven up the social atmosphere. The men will certainly welcome it."
According to preliminary figures, 87 women are entering a freshman class of 206 students in September. That 37% share is Caltech's highest since it began admitting undergraduate women in 1970, when pioneering females comprised 14% of the entering class. (Female doctoral candidates first arrived in the 1950s.)
Six years ago, women made up about 36% of freshmen, but that dropped to as low as 28.5% last year.
The new rise may not seem very dramatic to the outside world. Caltech still lags the 46.1% female enrollment expected in this fall's freshman class at its East Coast rival, MIT, which offers a broader range of majors, and the 42.6% expected at Harvey Mudd College, the science-and-math-focused school in Claremont.
And all those schools still lag the current 57% female enrollment total at colleges nationwide.
Still, the increase at Caltech -- a small and intellectually elite campus where the middle range of SAT scores is in the top 1% or 2% nationally -- is significant. It represents progress in getting more women into the highest levels of technology and science training, officials said.
"The more women we have on this campus, the better it is for everybody," said Erica O'Neal, Caltech's assistant vice president for student affairs. "It is better for women to not feel so isolated. And it is better for the guys to learn how not to be awkward with the opposite sex."
