Recent articles declaring ten schools the “Top Universities for Female Founders” ignore the much greater gender diversity among founding teams from Olin College (53%), which far outpaces the industry average of 17%. Compared to other colleges and universities where data is available, Olin seems to be graduating a more gender-equitable ratio of founders than even the leading institutions for founder diversity.
Gender Diversity among Olin Founders
I recently published the results of an exhaustive study of founders coming out of Olin College. 9 of these 17 Olin Startups have at least one female founder (roughly 53% compared to the 17% industry average). As Olin is committed to a 50:50 ratio of men to women in admission, there is certainly a selection bias to this population, it is also a great example of Olin fulfilling its mission of exporting its values to the industry, as this data suggests that not only are women from Olin often founding companies, but men from Olin are often co-founding with women from their networks outside of Olin, at a time when diversity in the tech industry is sorely needed.
How does this compare to other institutions? Recent reports about gender diversity of founders at Harvard and other schools look at female founders as a percentage of founder population — a different definition from the percentage of startups that have one or more female founders. Adjusting this data for the purposes of comparison, we see the conclusion still holds.
Industry data suggests that globally, women make up about 8% of venture-backed founders. Olin leads the pack of other top female-founder-producing colleges that are outpacing that industry average, but all of these institutions have quite a long way to go.
Why is Olin an Outlier?
First Round Capital found that over a ten year period, companies in their portfolio with at least one woman founder outperformed the portfolio by 63%. Olin has always and will always have a 50:50 male to female ratio across engineering majors, and it seems even with a small P-value, it’s at least directionally correct that Olin Founders also value diversity and inclusion on a founding team, and also in hiring. Olin Founders are not only often women, they also often co-found with women in their non-Olin professional networks.