Global Seminars take only 75 students

The 35 percent acceptance rate represents a sharp increase in selectivity for the program. Last year, the program took 50 percent of applicants, with 180 students applying for 90 spots.

Near Eastern studies professor Sukru Hanioglu, who has directed a seminar in Istanbul for the four years since the program’s 2007 inauguration, said that the selection process this year was particularly difficult due to the number of talented applicants.

“We look for good students,” Hanioglu said. “That’s the only thing we look for, and it’s difficult because at Princeton we obviously have a lot of good students. We would have loved to accept 15 more.”

Beissinger attributed the increase in selectivity to more awareness of the program among undergraduates as well as a decrease in the number of programs offered.

PIIRS is offering only five seminars this year — in Istanbul, Turkey; Kyoto, Japan; Berlin, Germany; Galway, Ireland; and Rome, Italy and Krakow, Poland — compared to last year’s six, due to funding issues.

Each seminar costs about $140,000 to run, he said, a cost which “covers pretty much all of the instructional costs and a number of other fixed costs.” The price that University students pay is heavily subsidized and not the actual cost of the seminar.

“The whole idea has been [whether] the University can raise the money,” Beissinger explained. “Right now we have enough money for five seminars, and we may need to lower it down to four seminars next year … but I’m confident that the University will be able to raise enough money.”

The Global Seminars application process consisted of essays, interviews and two letters of recommendation. The individual directors of the five seminars had control over each program’s selection process and the accepted applicants.

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“We honestly had no idea how many applications we were going to get,” Beissinger said. He added that each seminar currently has five to eight people on the waitlist.

“People may have other plans, [so] I suspect that some people will drop out,” he noted. “[The University realizes] that this is an area where there is significant student demand ... The word has spread about the seminars. They have a really good reputation.”

The success of the Global Seminars program, Hanioglu noted, is shown in the high level of interest among students. They definitely enjoy the seminars, he said, “or else there wouldn’t be 50 students trying to get in [to each program].”

Beissinger also noted that student feedback has been “very enthusiastic” and that several former participants had indicated their interest in applying to the program again. The increase in numbers, however, caused the program’s directors to restrict applicants to first-time participants.

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“We can’t really justify [a student] going on a seminar twice when there are some people who don’t go at all,” Beissinger explained.

Though the program is young, the seminars are evolving from year to year. “We started paying more attention to modern Turkey,” Hanioglu noted of his own course. “In past years, we talked mostly about history, and now we’ve found more of a balance between the two.”

Gabby Watts ’14, who applied and was accepted to Hanioglu’s seminar in Istanbul — called “Islam, Empire, and Modernity: Turkey and the Caliphs to the 21st Century” — said she became interested in participating in the Global Seminars program after taking a history class on the Ottoman Empire with Near Eastern studies professor Heath Lowry.

“Coming into Princeton, I was probably going to study history, and I wanted to branch away from the traditional Western history that you are usually taught in high school,” Watts explained. She said that she expects the program to take place “out and around Istanbul” and to participate in activities, such as “going to the markets and, of course, studying Turkish.”

Hanioglu is expecting another great summer for the Istanbul program, he said. “[Students] all say it’s been the greatest experience of their lives,” he explained.