WHEN I was little, my eyes were bigger than my stomach. I would always load onto my plate much more than I could digest. My mother eventually told me to scale back my portions, and if I was still hungry, to go back for more later. This maxim of handling what one has before adding more should be the guiding admissions philosophy of the University. The number of students admitted each year should be cut back in order to preserve the academic prestige of the University.
This year the University admitted 3,097 first years and more than 500 transfer students. Undoubtedly, these students are talented and worthy of admission. But there comes a time when the University must exercise prudence and be willing to admit less students in order to safeguard our school's standards of excellence.
The first week of school is basically the non-Greek hell week. Most students, from first years to fourth years, battle with each other and with ISIS not to get into a coveted class, but any class. Students sit in chairs, on floors and on window sills. The common scapegoat is the Echols scholars, but the problem is larger than a few hundred students. Some students, in this Darwinian drama, end up having to take summer classes to meet major requirements. This is a costly consequence for students who need to work over the summer to help out with an already expensive education.
Furthermore, the 17-credit limit is incredibly perturbing to College students, as many of their classes are 3 credits each. The University seems to be creating as many hurdles as possible to prevent students from pursuing a higher devotion to academics. Oh, the irony. If student self-governance is more than a clever marketing scheme, the University should trust its students to challenge themselves and make individual decisions on academic course loads. The gremlins of Garrett Hall claim to have instituted this credit limit to prevent class hoarding by older students. This rationale would make sense if the limit were 20 credits, or even 18. A 17-credit limit just adds to the hassle of the more academic students who simply want to take more classes. Instead of justifying this limit with claims of conspiratorial class-mongering, the University should have been honest and said that there aren't enough classes to go around for students.
Professors have to bear the burden of an overwhelming student body as well. At the beginning and end of every semester they get bombarded with emails begging them to allow every student in. Professors hate to turn students away, but sometimes they have no other choice when there are no chairs left in the class room. Professors should not have to act like New York City club bouncers, asking each desperate student at the beginning of the first class if he is on "the list."
Although transfer student admissions should be more selective, special attention should still be paid to those students applying from community colleges. The University, as a public school, should not forget to look down from the ivory tower and remember its commitment to ensuring educational opportunity regardless of not only race, but class.
Dean of Admissions John Blackburn agrees, saying that although the total number of transfers will not markedly increase, "a greater proportion [will be] from Virginia community colleges."
In addition, if the University wants to climb the chart of the coveted US News & World Report's top universities, it needs to decrease enrollment or hire more professors. Three of the main criteria for ranking universities are number of classes with 20 or fewer students, faculty/student ratio, and number of classes with 50 or more students. For a public school pressed for money, admitting fewer students is a lot easier than paying more professors when the ones already here aren't paid as well as their peers at other elite universities.
In response to criticisms about large class sizes, Blackburn says the student quality "seems to inch upwards each year on the credentials of the incoming students."
Beginning of semester stress could be greatly eased if the University made the difficult but responsible decision to admit fewer first years or transfer students. Admitting more students means lessening the educational quality of the University. The University should not be so beholden to prospective students (read: big, fat paychecks in the form of tuition) that it sacrifices its principal purpose of a second-to-none education. The University administration should primarily worry about the students already here.
Marta Cook's column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at mcook@cavalierdaily.com.
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