This past weekend, the Office of Campus Life announced that it would require student groups to eliminate applications in the coming years. The University already “strongly discourages exclusive groups,” according to a Daily article on the release (how strongly is questionable, as one group admitted about a third of 200 applicants this spring, according to the same article, and the sub-group of another admitted only 9 percent).

Soon afterward, columnist Jacob Altstadt argued that it would “cripple the entire worth of extracurricular life” at NU. I respectfully disagree. In this letter, I’m going to directly counter some of his arguments.

Jacob first argues that many organizations “derive their value from their selectivity,” and that members of clubs work hard because they feel like they’ve earned their places in the club through a competitive application process. So groups can’t have motivated members without being selective?

I’m not sure why we’d want groups to derive their value from selectivity — shouldn’t they derive value from the work that they do, the friendships they create and the passions they inspire in students? If a group only offers selectivity, its value is inflated.

Additionally, I hope that people are motivated to do work for a group not based on how important they feel for being a member of a selective group, but rather because they care about the group. Acceptance into an exclusive group certainly affirms people, but this affirmation isn’t necessary for us to work hard at something. On the other hand, if selectivity entails motivation (which I also doubt), then by Jacob’s argument, removing applications would incite no one, not everyone to join: groups are less selective, hence joining less valuable.

Next, he reprises the familiar argument against “coddling” students: “removing (rejection) from the college experience hinders … growth.” He envisions a “dystopian future where students will graduate having never faced… adversity.”

I have nothing against rejection per se. It’s important to learn how to deal with it. But between job and graduate school applications externally, and special programs and academic awards/honors internally, we don’t need more opportunities for rejection. Let’s stop fetishizing rejection as “character building” and remember that groups are not the sole, or main, source of selectivity in our lives.

Moreover, saying that removing applications is equivalent to handing out “participation medals” is blatant elitism. People being rejected from these groups are likely underclassmen, who haven’t had the opportunity to differentiate themselves from other students given their limited time here. On what actually-meaningful merit could they be judged? They’re all Northwestern students, who are at least “pretty smart” if you trust the admissions office.

He also sees a problem with NU committing externally to selectivity but internally to inclusivity: “the sense of accomplishment felt from admission to one of the country’s most selective schools would not be felt in the student groups within the school itself.”

Jacob conflates correlation and causation here: It’s not the case that I — and, I hope, many readers — feel accomplished as an NU student because the admissions rate was low, nor is it the case that NU is a high-quality institution because of its selectivity. NU is a high-quality undergraduate institution mostly because it’s a Research 1 university with a huge endowment — its low admissions rate is a consequence of general institutional quality, if a link exists at all.

He closes by noting that the application process ought to require some “will to take on challenges knowing full well that failure is (possible),” which he calls “courage.”

Open admissions does not remove the possibility of failure. Under open admissions, people could join groups more easily, but could fail in their work in the groups just as well. Continued involvement, rather than applying, should be the courageous action.

Jacob seems to argue that the main work of a student hoping to get involved is applying, and the main value of a group as dwelling not in what it does, but in how selective it is. He wants NU students to face unnecessary failures and stress so that we can build our character. I disagree with all of these sentiments entirely; they reveal many of the negatives to our selective student group culture — such as elitism, fetishizing adversity and exclusivity for the sake of exclusivity — that I’ve noted throughout.

Abruptly changing a single group’s structure would lead to pushback; abruptly changing most groups would lead to a lot of it. But why should we shirk from doing things that are difficult now but beneficial later, apart from comfort with tradition?

— Steven Bennett, Weinberg junior