There's a difference in the way women and men react to poor performance/failure, I read about it fairly recently (possibly on HN?) but can't find the link right

There's a difference in the way women and men react to poor performance/failure, I read about it fairly recently (possibly on HN?) but can't find the link right now. Will be back if I find it. Anyway. Women who do badly in the first few weeks of a course will think it's all their fault and drop the course. Men who do badly in the first few weeks of a course will think it's the course's fault and carry on. Here's the problem as I see it. You're accepting less qualified girls because you want girls in CS, but you're putting them up against a hard course that challenges their self confidence and belief, while their classmates -- typical boisterous male freshmen? -- are apparently coasting along (even if they aren't, they won't show it to the girls). I'd suggest a summer preparation self-study course (before my CS degree started I had to practice some math questions and read a book about the foundations of CS, which helped a little bit. Some kind of Informatics Olympiad thing might have been more useful) that also overlaps with the beginnings of CS1. That way the start of the course won't seem too bad. At the risk of positively discriminating (though looking at the numbers this is merely fixing a problem), ensure the female students have extra help with the course. Assign a TA/RA/senior student to help them out by e-mail or something. Make sure any less qualified male students get the same help, though. Just a thought. :)