Women in engineering-1 percent to 10 percent in four years

Special programs which lead high school girls to the college registration lines for freshmen engineering students are very new to most universities. Women enrollments of up to 10% of the engineering student body is equally a new experience. The College of Engineering at the University of North Dakota has conducted summer programs for high school girls for the last four years. The effort to attract, retain, and graduate women engineers seems to be successfully established. Thirty percent of the participants in the summer programs have enrolled in engineering at UND and 85% of those are continuing their study. Fifty percent of the total female engineering students are institute participants; the other 50% enrolled directly into the college or transferred from other disciplines and other schools. Regardless of their origin, women engineering students are talented and well prepared as their average composite ACT score of about 27 indicates. The special effort by staff and students has increased the enrollment of women in engineering by a factor of 10 since 1971.