Interest in Wilson School remains constant, while other social science departments see drop in concentrators

In the first year of non-selective admissions to the Wilson School, the School saw the number of concentrators almost double, while other social science departments saw a decline in the number in its sophomore concentrators fall.

The Wilson School had 162 concentrators in this year's class of sophomores. In previous years, only 90 sophomores were admitted to the school, both as concentrators and certificate students, in the selective admissions process.

“It was right at the level we had expected,” Wilson School undergraduate program faculty chair Christina Davis said. “This is close to our past numbers — we had 164 applicants last year, and so we had expected that we would get around that level this year. We’d also seen the survey that the sophomores took in the fall, and that had also indicated that we would expect something along this figure.”

This year, interest among rising juniors in the Wilson School has remained high, but Davis said that the School has been working to accommodate the increased number of concentrators by creating new task forces and policy research seminars, as well as new study abroad sites.

“I think the name of the Woodrow Wilson School probably attracted a lot of people, just by itself,” Andrew Min ’15, who declared the school as his major, said.

“I think there are a lot of sunk costs that go into the Woodrow Wilson School because there are four prerequisites,” Min pointed out. He explained that though sunk costs shouldn’t factor into students’ decision-making, many feel that “they invested a lot of time doing the prerequisites for Woodrow Wilson School.”

Alvaro Cuba ’15, who also declared the Wilson School as his major, noted that 40 sophomores joined the department on the last day of the major declaration period. He said he hypothesized that many students were indecisive and decided on the Wilson School so that they wouldn’t have to choose between academic disciplines.

“I think taking Woody Woo allows you to not have to make a choice, because if you’re between Politics and Econ, you don’t have to choose if you do Woody Woo. You can do both,” Cuba said.

While between 150 and 180 students applied for the Wilson School annually in the years while it was still selective, only 90 applicants per year were be chosen for the School through its selection process, some of whom concentrated in the school and some of whom completed a certificate, according to former Wilson School undergradute program faculty chair and professor Stanley Katz.

Katz explained in an interview with The Daily Princetonian on Wednesday that the Wilson School used to ask applicants which department they would enter if they were not selected. “I can’t give you an exact number, but the majority of the students always said politics,” Katz said. “I was predicting, and it looks as though it was correct, that we would gain at the expense of politics.”

The number of sophomores who declared politics fell from 115 in the Class of 2014 to 62 in the Class of 2015. According to the University’s enrollment statistics, the politics department has attracted around 100 to 115 students during the past five years.

Davis said she thought that both departments could benefit from the changes in the number of concentrators.

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“I don’t think that it should be a negative for either side,” she said. “For [the] politics department, there’s a benefit in that they’ll have a smaller group of students who are really committed to studying politics, and for the Woodrow Wilson School, we need to rise to the challenge of helping this broad group who wants to do interdisciplinary work.”

In addition, the number who declared economics this year decreased slightly from last year’s 134 to 122. This figure is in line with the University’s enrollment statistics, which show that economics usually gets around 120 to 130 concentrators each year.

Sociology also saw a slight drop, from 28 students declaring last year to 22 this year.

“A lot of departments are very valuable to the university, and I just hope they don’t diminish because of this,” Miriam Araya ’14, a sociology concentrator, said.

Naimah Hakim ’15, who is entering the anthropology department, said she thought the reduction of concentrators in the other social sciences as a result of the Wilson School’s non-selective admissions policy would have some benefits. “It means the department will be smaller, and that likely there’ll be more funding per student, so those are all good things for me,” Hakim said.

However, not all the other social science departments saw declines. The psychology department saw an increase in concentrators, from 65 sophomores who declared last year and a similar number of concentrators in other recent years, to the total of 80 students who declared this year.

“I know people that went both ways — people that went to Woody Woo now that it was more open, and others who thought to switch out because it was too big, or at least they perceived it to be,” Hakim explained.

News Editor Patience Haggin contributed reporting.

Correction: Due to an editor, an earlier version of this article misstated the class year of Naimah Hakim '15. The 'Prince' regrets the error.