Montreal Massacre - 20 years on

[TerraPrime]

I just remembered this anecdote today, while talking to one of my students about his plans for graduate school.

I had a student last fall, who is an outstanding student. She has 4.0 GPA, won national scholarships from the American Chemistry Society, doing undergraduate research for 2 years and looking at a publication. Just all sorts of star quality. Her interest is in chemical engineering. So she applied to several schools, including some Ivies. She got invited to visit for all of them, and this story took place in one of her visits.

The name of the school is witheld here, but it is a major research university of national fame.

She showed up to the interview and there were 11 other students. She was the only woman in the group. The group was waiting in the lobby for the guided tour part of the day's activity, when the faculty who is supposed to be doing the guided tour showed up. He, and it's a he, turned to her, and to her alone, and asked her "Ma'am, are you sure you're in the right place? This is a tour for the graduate program in chemical engineering."

The student was, needless to say, shocked. One of the other students piped up and said that yes, she's part of the group (the prospective students have all had breakfast together already).

It should come as a surprise to no one that she didn't pick that school.

I urged the student to write about this incident to the admission chair to let them know about this, but she was understandably hesitant. I don't think she ever did write that letter.

So, yeah, lots of progress in 20 years, but still, very far to go.