In Fall 2008, the School of Business will permit sophomores to seek admission along with juniors, the current requirement.
According to the 2005-'06 Report to Investors, The change is intended to create a more diverse learning community, encourage students to pursue more challenging coursework outside the School of Business, better prepare students for meaningful internships and provide more opportunity for students to study abroad or have similar international experiences.""
The problem with this change is the requirement in the first place. While I'm not sure why a student was formerly required to have 60 credits to enter Business School, I can't say it makes me happy that the change comes about now.
Plenty of prerequisites make it difficult for people to enter the No. 12 business school in the nation. For example, Psychology 210, one of the prerequisites for undergraduates at UW-Madison, is known by students as a ""weed out"" class. This means the class is designed to deter those students who lack motivation or the drive to succeed in the Business School.
These prerequisites are sufficient to weed out the average applicant without a junior status requirement. To apply now, a student must have obtained enough credits to acquire sophomore status.
That's all fine, but what is next?
Will applicants have to be Wisconsin residents for ""x"" number of years? I think there is serious reason to doubt the plausibility of this and other similar requirements.
My rationale is that residency requirements would be just another stupid idea, one within a long line of stupid ideas that came before it: age requirements for politicians, a legal drinking age, gerrymandering and racial discrimination in Nazi Germany. Okay, the last one is a stretch.
In all seriousness, we should not allow people to be categorized in this way. When someone suggests a policy that will separate people from their peers for no reason, go against it. Such a policy isn't created to make the match even, like weight classes do for wrestling. It is for arbitrary rejection and it is used here to improve statistics.
The school faces no shortage of applicants each semester. I talked to no less than five people yesterday who assumed the Business School was impossible to get into.
Most of them had problems because they did not take the right classes, not because anyone thought it would be a good idea to apply before they had enough credits. I have a hard time seeing why the school would even want to cut into the amount of applications they get.
Nothing is worse than the ""man"" trying to bring you down. Brown v. the Board of Education showed the Board of Education is not always right. Segregating people because of their age is wrong - and that is why these ludicrous rules should not exist.
Let freshman apply to the business School. Hell, let high school freshman apply. If any of those little monkeys have passed the class prerequisites for Business School, then why not?
