Why Woody Woo should switch to open-enrollment

Despite my recent acceptance into the Woodrow Wilson School, with which, I admit I am rather pleased, I cannot help feeling uncomfortable that many qualified and ambitious fellow students were rejected. After all, students do not need to apply to enter any other department at Princeton. Whether one chooses to major in anything from Archaeology to Engineering to Physics, all one needs to do is to take the prerequisite courses and enroll.

Indeed, Princeton University can hardly be accused of being short of resources or of stiffing its students. We enjoy a seemingly endless list of benefits, great and small — talented faculty, workers who pick up our trash every morning, a still sparkling campus center, generous financial aid policies and nice scenery. Accordingly, when something is limited at Princeton we quite naturally have to ask why.

Why then is it that entry to the Woodrow Wilson School is limited in view of the virtually endless opportunities and resources offered at Princeton? What rationale can justify such an anomalous policy?

Restricting admission to the Wilson School strikes one as prima facie unfair. It is hard to accept that a department, which teaches public policy — skills that allow one to serve one's country, community and fellow human beings — should be more limited than any other. The call to public service to which the Wilson School properly appeals is surely one that we can never do enough to encourage.

Two arguments are generally offered. Firstly, that it is impossible to accommodate a larger number of students because of the small size of the Wilson School and the uniqueness of its educational method focused on the policy task force. A second, and perhaps less openly stated, argument made in favor of limited entry is that the department must be selective in order to gather up the best students available.

To argue that the Wilson School must be limited in size because of limited resources for its special programs seems unfounded. There is always the option to hire a few more preceptors and professors with the school's funds. Rather than spending vast sums on renovation and building a prettier fountain, the school could invest to expand its capacity.

As to selecting the best students for the Wilson School, the entire body of Princeton sophomores has already passed through a far more rigorous process to enter Princeton than the brief Wilson application. Why not select by the same method used successfully by every other department? Grades normally serve as a foolproof selective mechanism. Either students get through courses or don't, but at least everyone gets an opportunity to try and be judged by their own abilities, instead of by a couple of diminutive 300-word essays and one letter of recommendation and no interview. Too much may hinge upon which professor writes a recommendation or upon a resume packed with internships that not everyone can afford.

There is a third and unspoken reason for limiting entry to the Wilson School — self-interest. The practice creates a mystique of exclusivity and conveys the impression that a degree granted by the Wilson School is somehow a cut above those from other departments. Thus while the application process may not be reliable, it works to the apparent benefit of those who pass through. At the first application meeting for interested sophomores, students were told that they ought not to apply simply for the sake of "one last competition" but instead because the school offers an interdisciplinary approach that is unlike that of any other social science department. This was good advice, but the best way to ensure against this problem would be to open up admissions to the Wilson School. The trouble is that the application creates unhealthy perceptions as to the superiority of one department over another. Inherent in the process is the assumption that the Wilson School is better than the Politics or Economics or History Departments, when in fact it produces an entirely different product. Applications make the school appear to be an honors program rather than an interdisciplinary one.

In no way am I arguing that standards should fall or that everyone should be allowed to succeed whether they deserve to or not. Rather I argue that the reliable natural selection of grading replace an unnecessarily arbitrary selection process. It is time to reexamine the issues and rationale for the Wilson School's approach. An open policy of self-selection by already talented Princeton students, subject to prerequisites, as in any other department, might work to the advantage of students, the school and the public whom it prepares us to serve. Carlos Ramos-Mrosovsky is from New York, NY. He can be reached at cr@princeton.edu.