Wilson School sees 58 percent admit rate

Applications filled out, recommendations obtained and transcripts submitted, sophomores who had been waiting to hear whether they had been admitted to the Wilson School flocked to their mailboxes on March 14.

Of the 154 students who applied to the program, 90 were accepted. Roughly that number has been the standard Wilson School class size for the last decade.

“We had quite a range of people,” Wilson School faculty chair and professor Stanley Katz said. “It took us several hours to go through the [decision] process.” He added that the strength of the applicant pool was not significantly different from in previous years.

Molly Alarcon ’10 said that she was pleased with her acceptance because concentrating in the Wilson School would enable her to closely study the domestic education system.

“I do eventually see myself [working] with education policy maybe back in my home state of California,” she explained. Alarcon also plans to obtain a teaching certificate in high school social studies.

Of the 90 accepted, 11 are certificate students from departments such as art and archaeology, chemical engineering, operations research and financial engineering, molecular biology, ecology and evolutionary biology, astrophysics and physics.

Applicants were widely aware of the University’s ongoing involvement with the Robertson lawsuit which, in part, alleges that the Wilson School does not adequately encourage its students to pursue careers in public service. Many, though, said that they believed that the majority of accepted students are interested in government work.

“The people who end up getting into Woody Woo are committed to the public sector and have a substantial interest in it,” David Levit ’10 said. Levit plans to focus his studies on Russia and hopes to run for public office in the future.

With an acceptance rate of 58.44 percent, this year’s applicant pool size, Katz said, marks a return to the average after last year’s increase and subsequent 47 percent acceptance rate.

After the Wilson school received 195 applications in 1999, the class size was increased from 80 to 90 students. In 2000, though, the school received a low of 130 applicants. In subsequent years the number of applications rose steadily, peaked at 167 in 2003 and for several years lingered in the vicinity of that number.

Last year, however, 190 members of the Class of 2009 applied to the Wilson School, pushing the acceptance rate for the University’s only selective major to below 50 percent.

Lingzi Gui ’10, who is from China and is also a business staffer for The Daily Princetonian, will specialize in urban policy and development and has wanted to study in the Wilson School since the beginning of her freshman year.

“I think that by the time I applied [to Princeton] I was very sure that this was what I wanted to do ... Woody Woo gives me the freedom to do what I want,” she said.

Overall, Gui described the application process as “less scary than expected” but did sympathize with those who did not receive one of the coveted acceptance letters. She noted that, unfortunately, no selection process is perfect.

While the Wilson School typically keeps a roll of waitlisted applicants, few of those on the list are admitted because students rarely decline their acceptances.

 

— Senior writer Rachael Dunn contributed reporting to this story.