Female graduate students and program quality

Despite rising numbers of women in computer science (CS) graduate programs, women still comprised less than one-third of enrolled students in those programs in recent years. Efforts to raise the level of female representation resulted in mixed success. Departments where faculty reported putting the most effort into recruiting female graduate students generally enrolled women in no greater, and sometimes smaller, percentages than departments putting little into recruiting women. A look at some departmental characteristics and practices, related to women´s proportion of graduate enrollment in CS, indicates that women´s representation is actually lowest in departments where faculty are of the highest scholarly quality, and that this situation may be affected by some recruitment and admissions procedures.