– Successful engineering STEM major at Binghamton has good mathematics preparation, and disproportionately is of Asian ethnicity. Women are few in numbers as engineers.
– Other STEM fields see less emphasis on mathematics preparation, but more emphasis on the presence of AP coursework.
– Women have the same presence in these other STEM fields as in the whole university.
– Ability, as proxied by SAT scores and AP credits, is important regardless of discipline in terms of final GPA. Any advantage that women have is confined to the Non-STEM fields, and Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians do not do as well as other ethnic groups.
– Students that declare Engineering in their Freshman year are significantly more likely to persist.
– The percentage of female students enrolled in a specific course of interest was found to be significant and positive for sophomore level mathematics courses, but negative for junior level courses.
– An Interaction term of the percent female students variable together with a term denoting the gender of instructor was not found to be significant in all cases except in beginning Biology where the relationship was negative.
– Having more female students in a specific class helps the grades of all the females in that class. Gender peer effect was found to be significant for Biology and Mathematics courses.
– STEM students’ grades were more responsive to the variable of having entered as freshman, more responsive to better mathematics scores and more responsive to reported AP course hours, than were Non-STEM students.