For the First Time, Women Are a Majority of First-Year Students at Carnegie Mellon University

For the first time in history, women make up a majority of the entering class at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. This is a significant milestone for a university that awards a majority of its degrees in STEM disciplines.

This year, there are 857 women in the entering class at Carnegie Mellon University. They make up 51.1 percent of the entering class. Four years ago in 2013, there were 644 women in the entering class of 1,444 students. They made up 44 percent of first-year students.

Women are 49.3 percent of incoming undergraduate students planning to major in computer science. In engineering fields, women are 43 percent of incoming undergraduate students.

The increase in women students is not restricted to STEM fields. Women make up 57 percent of the incoming undergraduate students at the university’s Tepper School of Business. This is a 12 percentage point increase over a year ago.

Laurie Weingart, interim provost at Carnegie Mellon University, stated that “the quality and makeup of the incoming class is testimony to our strong belief that diversity in all forms makes for a strong and richer learning environment.”