The share of computer science and engineering degrees going to women has increased at the most selective American universities over the past 20 years and is approaching gender parity, while the proportion has declined at less selective schools. Those are the main findings of a study my colleague and I recently published in the journal Science.

Jo R. King and I analyzed over 34 million bachelor’s degrees awarded by nearly 1,600 American universities from 2002 to 2022 – data covering almost all bachelors-degree-granting institutions in the U.S. We wanted to identify which factors best predict parity among men and women in physics, engineering and computer science majors.

We focused on the ratio of how many physics, engineering and computer science degrees men earned out of the total degrees they earned across all majors, relative to the corresponding ratio for women. A university’s average math SAT score among admitted students emerged as the strongest predictor of the relative ratio – the two ratios compared – and its importance has grown over time. SAT scores range from 200 to 800.

At universities with average math SAT scores of about 770 – which tends to be the standard at only the most elite, math-focused U.S. schools, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the California Institute of........

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