Students shut out of A&A

For Yale's budding architects, the A&A building on York Street is usually a place they call home. Some of these students, however, are finding themselves turned away at the door. The architecture major's high popularity among members of the Class of 1998 has called attention to the problems facing students considering competitive majors.

A&A

The Yale School of Architecture has long supported a competitive undergraduate major, limited to 20 students in each of the junior and senior classes. The growing interest in this program among undergraduates led this fall to an unprecedented oversubscription of Architecture 250a--Methods and Form in Architecture, a required course for the major. Judith DiMaio, the DUS of the Architecture department, said the situation was "an unpleasant predicament for students and administrators."

After a selection process which included a review of student portfolios, transcripts, and the results of a week-long sketch assignment, eight juniors were turned away from the class which was capped at 21 students.

Citing limited space and funding to adequately accommodate the number of juniors who applied for the major this year, DiMaio stressed that the primary reason for the exclusive nature of the program was to maintain the intensive individual instruction which the school seeks to provide. "We want to be excellent," she said. "And we can't do that by raising the number of students in the class."

DiMaio characterized the School of Architecture as a graduate/professional school first, and an undergraduate major second. Since the department has no faculty members with appointments in Yale College or the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the funding for the undergraduate major comes primarily from the School itself.

While DiMaio described the recent representation of the situation as exaggerated and inaccurate, she stated that the School of Architecture will be evaluating the application process so as to avoid a similar situation in the future.

Despite the intense application procedure, some students feel it is unfair. "I think architecture is very subjective and should not be a limited major. A student's portfolio may not reflect the potential they have if trained correctly. Look at Maya Lin. When she handed in her design for the Vietnam War Memorial as her final project, she got a B for it. She's famous now, but her grades didn't really reflect her immense talent," an anonymous architecture major said.

Architecture, however, is only one of several highly selective majors available to undergraduates in Yale College. Although architecture has garnered headlines in recent days, it is not an isolated case. Rather, it exemplifies the process that is carried out in other competitive departments.

Ethics, Politics, and Economics (EP&E), another popular major, requires prospective students to apply in December of their sophomore year. Selections are based on a student's transcript, written statement of interest, and a two- to three-page writing sample. Each year, only 40 students are accepted, and the number of applications is often double that.

Students applying to the major in Theater Studies face similar stresses. Admission to the major is based on a two- to three- minute monologue performed before a committee, and a letter of intent. "It's pretty stressful. There's a lot of pressure on you. But they have to have a good student-teacher ratio," Charles Beal, JE '99, said.

Prospective actors find, however, that even without the benefit of the Theater Studies major, opportunities for work in the theater abound. "If you don't get into the major, you can still be in plays. You can still deal with humans and art face-to-face," Beal said. Although he was not accepted to the Theater Studies major, Beal is performing in two plays this fall.

Much of the current furor over the competitive nature of the architecture major stems from the fact that there are virtually no other outlets for those interested in architecture to develop their skills; some of those denied a spot in the required class report feeling that their career was lost on one project. Both EP&E and Theater Studies, on the other hand, are broad enough areas to allow students to find other opportunities to support their interests.