Admission to Charter grows more competitive

This year 144 students attempted to sign into the club, 16 more students than did so last year. Only 100 were accepted this year, with no wait-list.

Under the point system, sophomores can boost their odds of gaining membership to the club by attending events and demonstrating interest. Club officers created this process so that students committed to the club were more likely to get in than those who may have only picked Charter at the last minute.

“We are not selective for selectivity’s sake,” Charter president Rodrigo Menezes ’13 said in an email. “Rather, we use the weighted sign-in system in an attempt to objectively find sophomores who are more likely to be active within the club. While Charter is renowned for its food and for its beautiful clubhouse, Charter is about community.”

Sophomores were able to increase their personal point totals by attending club events, which began as early as October. The more events a student attended, the more points he or she received. Each individual’s point total was calculated as an average of two attendance percentages: one for the percentage of sophomore meals attended and a second for the percentage of club events attended.

This year, the point cutoff was .52, which is significantly higher than last year’s cutoff of about .25.

Students could sign in with groups of up to 12. If students formed a sign-in group, then the average of the group’s points needed to exceed the threshold for the students in the group to gain membership.

Menezes noted, however, that the point system does have some limitations.

“As this is a new system, it does not come without issues,” Menezes said. “However, as the system matures, we are confident that the kinks will be figured out. I think it’s the start of [a] wonderful thing.”

For example, some events — such as Charter Blackout — were overcrowded, possibly preventing some students from receiving their points.

“Charter Blackout got a bit messy, but to my knowledge people who waited outside were eventually given the point for attendance,” said Leo Kang ’14, who was accepted.

Some other students who were recently admitted to Charter said that they attended certain events just to obtain points and left shortly thereafter.

Additionally, because of the large number of potential events, the process is lengthier than the sign-in periods for other clubs. Kang said that as a result, the Charter system became quite time-consuming.

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“It does place a significant demand on your time, but with more people interested than places available, there isn’t really a way around that problem,” he said.

Samantha Halpern ’14, who signed in to Charter with a group of four friends, said that she felt that Charter’s weighted sign-in system was more just than the typical system used by the other four sign-in clubs.

“[Charter’s point system] encourages sophomores to investigate Charter early on, and it ensures that the people who really want to be in Charter get in,” she said. “It is definitely much more fair than a lottery system.”

She added that she does not think the system puts too much demand on sophomores’ time.

“There were not that many events a month, and half of the events were meals, which you would be going to anyway,” Halpern said.

Some of Charter’s sophomore-specific events included a popular beer tasting night, a semi-formal and a spa day, among others.

“One year after we used the system for the first time, it seems it has been successful,” Menezes said. “In my opinion, Charter has a stronger community now than it has had any time in recent memory.”