With the application cycle coming to a close, Carleton College has made headlines across the United States for its newly unveiled admissions policy. In a stunning win for advocates of admissions equity and equal opportunity, the college has officially announced that they will be accepting every single applicant to the class of ‘27. Carleton has contacted all previously rejected applicants and informed them of their new acceptance to the college, totaling a record 7,000 applicants admitted into the incoming class.
Acceptance letters, Head of College Admissions, has said: “We are really pleased to have finally implemented this policy. We feel that this will substantially increase the diversity and community of students on campus. Or, at least, it will substantially increase the students on campus.” When asked how the 7,000 incoming students could feasibly live on Carleton’s campus, she hesitated for a second before stating, “Right. We’re converting every room into a quad so that students get the opportunity to form stronger bonds through shared living spaces. We are also expanding Goodhue into the Arb to create closer ties between the community and the natural spaces we are so lucky to have access to at Carleton. In fact, most students will now be living in the Arb.”
Some students, however, have raised concerns. Fresh Mann, a freshman, reached out with her concerns to the newspaper. She is concerned about “the annihilation of the small liberal arts college community I initially applied to be a part of” and “the utter nightmare of class registrations with triple the number of students.” Other students have pointed out the lack of space for extra students in classrooms, clubs and everything else. They argue that there is not even enough space in Northfield for that many people, let alone Carleton’s campus. In protest, every professor in the computer science department has quit, citing the impossibility of fitting 200 students into a lab meant for 30.
Dean Dean, Dean of Students, sought to assuage these concerns in their latest email to the Carleton community. They write, “To those concerned about class size, do not worry. While we will not be hiring more faculty to take on extra sections, we have invested a significant portion of our budget in the purchase of comically large chairs and furniture to facilitate expanded class size.” Inn Clusivity, Head of DEI, added that this policy gave historically underrepresented groups entry into college, such as international students and those with low SAT scores. It has been noted that there are still no Indigenous students from any of the tribes that Carleton uses land from.
It remains to be seen how this policy will play out over the coming years and how it will impact students and faculty alike. Many are optimistic for next year’s New Student Week, expected to resemble “a herd of thundering wildebeest with a potpourri of mental illnesses.”
