Getting in is the hard part

When I was a young, naïve high school senior, I assumed that an early decision "Yes!" from Dean Fred meant that I was done with applications for a long time to come. That fantasy was short-lived. I've since realized that a successful Princeton application only gets you in the door. If you want to take many of the most enticing courses once you actually get here, then the application process has only just begun.

When people would say that the hardest part is getting in, I assumed they meant to the University, not to classes within the University. But for this semester alone, I had to write four different applications for courses I wanted to take in the Program in Humanistic Studies and the Program in American Studies.

"It's like Princeton is the hotel room and these application-only courses are the mini-bar," explains Bryan Cattle '07. "You get here and you think you're going to have free, easy access to the goods and then in the end it turns out to be this big hassle."

If you step back and think about it, writing an application just to have a shot at taking a class is a strange practice, a kind of academic exclusion seemingly not in line with the spirit of this institution. It is as though some departments and programs are saying, "We want you to contribute to the intellectual life of the University...just not in this class . . . or that one."

The applications themselves are not without flaws. Many ask some version of the following question: Why do you want to take this course and what do you hope to gain from it? "I don't totally understand how they determine who has the 'best' reason for wanting to take a class. How do they judge that?" asks Ann Vale '07.

At the end of last year, I applied to take a course on humor writing with Joel Stein, a visiting professor and staff writer at Time magazine. Apparently, my funnies fell flat. Stein did not offer me a spot in the class. It strikes me that there is something counterintuitive about my rejection. After all, doesn't the lack of wit I demonstrated in my application prove that I needed that humor course as much as anyone?

Even more than needing to take the class, I really wanted to take it. And college should be a time for satisfying our wants, a time to indulge our curiosities, not deny them — or have them be denied.

I'm not saying application-only courses don't serve a purpose. I understand the rationale for putting together a small, self-selecting group of motivated people who are all interested in a particular topic. And many would argue that to put such a group together and preserve the seminar setting there is no viable alternative to the application process.

But such a claim ignores a broader solution. That solution is simply to not limit the number of available spots in the first place. Instead, recruit more professors who can teach the same class. I'm no economist, but isn't there some law about supply matching demand? When our intellectual curiosity is at stake, that's a law the University would do well to obey.

The point is, if a specific course piques a student's interest, that student should be able to take it, in some capacity, no matter what. I don't have to be a great basketball player to play basketball here. Sure, I might not be on varsity, but there's still J.V., club and intramural. Couldn't the University offer some of the same fun courses for those of us with only J.V. abilities? So maybe I don't get to have Joel Stein coaching me on comedy. But at least I still get to play. P.G. Sittenfeld is a sophomore from Cincinnati, Ohio. He can be reached at pg@princeton.edu.