An easier way to SCORE

You know how I know that Princeton students are actually as dorky as our reputation suggests? The only thing that can rouse us from our sleep at 7 a.m. is, of all things, course registration. So, as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and dragged myself out of bed to sign up for courses this past Friday, I found myself thinking, “isn’t there an easier way to SCORE?”

I sure hope so. The current system is totally wacky, starting with the SCORE website itself. Why, I always wonder to myself, do we have to click through so many empty tabs — student self service, academic and personal info, SCORE — before we actually get to the one with the links we want? Isn’t the SCORE tab obviously the one that I wanted in the first place if the website itself is called SCORE? This is a mystery best left untouched.

But there are greater problems at hand. It makes no sense to have registration begin so early in the morning. I understand that it would be unfair to open SCORE during the afternoon or early evening because students have classes or sports practice. Yet, the proceedings could start at, say, 10 or 11 p.m. This may upset the schedules of a few a cappella and theater groups, but I would much prefer to inconvenience this small number of students than to bother the whole campus. After all, the number of students who are unoccupied and, most importantly, awake at night is far greater than the number of students who meet both these qualifications at 7 a.m. (I suppose “sleep” doesn’t cut it as an excuse at Princeton for being busy.)

The current system is also unfair. Those students who are lucky enough to refresh their pages at the correct second are rewarded with a head start in locating and registering the courses. On the other hand, those unlucky enough to experience internet difficulties or a computer malfunction incur negative consequences. Nearly everyone in the class will have registered for courses by the time these poor souls even log in. To be sure, many students do get most of the classes they want. Yet, many students — freshmen in particular — end up clicking furiously but are left unable to register for at least one of the courses they hoped to take. Surely, small motor skills should not be the determining criterion for course enrollment.

Perhaps a system similar to that of room draw would be more logical. After all, if something as important as housing is determined randomly, why not treat classes the same way? The draw system, however, might also be problematic when applied to SCORE. The perils of pseudo-random numbers have already been demonstrated on the pages of The Daily Princetonian. Moreover, since students’ courses will heavily influence their major academic decisions, like their areas of concentration and thesis topics, randomly assigning courses could be equated to playing roulette with students’ intellectual futures. 

The fairest solution, then, is to assign courses based on student preferences. Each undergraduate class should be given a full week to input their course selection as well as rank their courses in order of which ones they value most. This way, a student who really wants to take HIS 380 but cares little about LIN 201, a course that often has to reject students for lack of space, would not steal a spot from a student who plans on studying linguistics in graduate school.

Such a system would also relieve professors of some stress. It would empty their mailboxes and consciences of requests from students who dreamt of getting into their class but could not due to bad luck. (Or possibly dreamed about classes a little too seriously and slept through their alarm.)

Best of all, students who rank a course high enough under the proposed system would be virtually guaranteed a slot. In an extreme situation where the course is so popular that even students who ranked the course highly could not get in, the professor would be assured that all the students who are in the course truly want to be there.  

One thing every member of this community shares in common is a deep regard for a Princeton education. Something so universally valued should not be left to the caprices of SCORE.

Adam Bradlow is a freshman in Wilson College from Potomac, Md. He can be reached at abradlow@princeton.edu.