<p>I disagree with the premise that being closed out of courses means a student is foreclosed from exploring a wide range of study in a liberal arts institution. If a wide range of options is the goal, those options are still there. It’s true that they’re not all still there. They are all but one still there.</p>
<p>If a student – particularly a freshman or sophomore – needs a certain, specific course…and finds out that it’s closed…then it’s not the wide range of options that’s closed. Just one course. And if a student’s academic life is zeroed in so finely as to depend on that one course at that one point in time, then we’re not truly talking about a student who’s interested in that wide range. Especially as a freshman or sophomore.</p>
<p>If a closed-out course is that essential, then it seems to me more like we’re talking about people being denied an opportunity to pursue a narrowly focused journey. A student interested in exploring a wide range of opportunities isn’t going to feel stuck in the hallway, struggling to unlock one closed door. That student is looking at the many other open doors and struggling with the problem of choosing which of the numerous open doors to enter.</p>
<p>If there’s one thing a competitive admission process should teach students, it’s that not all opportunities in life are available and open to everyone…including all of the people who are fully qualified to exploit those opportunities to the fullest advantage. Being accepted to a college doesn’t mean that this basic reality of life goes into a state of suspended animation for four (or so) years. I am not sure how there’s a surprise or “gotcha!” involved here, particularly at a liberal arts college that offers excellent opportunities via many paths. This isn’t even a “glass half empty/half full” scenario. It’s a “glass with one sip taken” scenario.</p>
<p>Ironically, I believe the students at LACs deal with this reality better than the parents. The parents are going to hear about the closed courses, the nasty menu choices at the dining hall, and the big storm that knocked out the power just before that 10-page essay was saved. Parents are less likely to get the follow-up later on about the amazing things that happened in the environmental studies class taken as a “fallback” to the creative writing class, the fact that everyone on the hall bagged the dining hall and ate Jerk Burgers at the Feve, or that the next week was totally sunny and that essay was completed on a laptop while sitting outside the library as albino squirrels frolicked nearby. If a parent’s not getting the sunshine news, it’s only natural for them to see only clouds.</p>