For Core Exemption, Students Must File Form

Director of the Core Program Susan W. Lewis said Monday that the decision not to automatically switch all returning students to the new Core requirements is because some students may have had more course flexibility before the change.

Under the new system students will only be exempt from an extra core if they submit a form included in upper class registration packets last Friday before the end of their senior year.

Following a Faculty of Arts and Sciences decision last spring, students may now take seven instead of eight cores.

“We decided to allow people to ask for the new system because we knew there were some, probably a very small amount, of students who wouldn’t ask for it,” Lewis said.

She said she was aware of two students for whom the new exemptions would actually mean taking additional cores.

One, a statistics concentrator, had already taken Science A and Social Analysis, two of the Core’s he was now exempt from. Under the old system, statistic concentrators were allowed to waive two of either Historical Studies A, Science A or B or Social Analysis, depending upon their subfield.

Lewis said that though such cases were rare, the Core committee felt the form was necessary to ensure that all students could benefit from the change.

“Not everyone can take advantage of the new system, especially if they have done everything already, or are about to,” she said.

For advanced standing students, the number of requirements was reduced to one less than the number of terms for which they are enrolled.

Lewis said that these changes have kept her office very busy these past few days.

“We have received a lot of phone calls from students seeking some sort of confirmation that they understand the new system, and most of the time they are correct,” Lewis said.

To others, news that they must request the change came as a surprise.

“I didn’t even know about the form,” said Ryan G. White ’04.

Lewis said that students should not try to guess which cores they will take in order to submit the form as soon as possible, but that she doesn’t recommend letting it go beyond their senior year.

—Staff writer Jessica E. Vascellaro can be reached at vascell@fas.harvard.edu.