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Wilson School takes 80 after 166 apply

The wait was wrenching.

After hammering out its pool of 166 applicants last week, the Wilson School surprised 80 sophomores with congratulatory letters yesterday afternoon, a week earlier than expected.

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Will Carry '00 received the good news while he was getting lunch at Wilcox dining hall.

"I went to lunch today, and someone in the lunch line had their envelope and I saw it and ran up to the mailbox and ripped open that letter," Carry said.

"I was so excited I left the key in the mailbox," he added.

This year's application bore a different look than ever before. To eliminate some of the ultra-specific focus areas sometimes pitched in the applications, the Wilson School added a list of some focus areas of its current students, said Nathan Scovronick, the Wilson School's Undergraduate Program Director.

The faculty selection committee picks its students on a casual rubric, Scovronick said.

For example, if one particular focus area was popular among the applicant pool, that element would have no bearing on any individual applicant's chances for admission, he said.

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Also, a student wanting to concentrate in the Wilson School has no advantage over someone who just wants to gain a certificate.

"We just took people who we thought were the best," he said, adding that "it balances out over the long term."

The competition for the coveted 80 slots was slightly less intense than it was last year, when an unprecedented 194 applicants vied for admission. But Scovronick said the competition was still a little higher than average, noting the size difference between the Class of 1999 and the Class of 2000.

For some students, though, there is still some hope. Scovronick said there was a short wait-list but refused to divulge how many were actually on that list. The chances for gaining admission depend on how many of the 80 accepted students decline their offer, which he says does not occur too often.

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"Some years, no, some years, yes. Last year there was one or two, and the year before no one," he said.

Jon Right '00 plans on complementing his degree in Civil Engineering and Operations Research with a certificate in the Wilson School.

Right said he had wanted his independent work to go beyond crunching numbers. "I'll focus on the economic and social issues more than engineering issues," he said, adding that his work in the Wilson School will examine urban issues like poverty.

Students admitted to the Wilson School have a wide range of coursework options for the next two years. The interdisciplinary nature of the program, however, requires them to choose classes from five departments: anthropology, economics, history, politics and sociology.