At a school like Phillips Academy, where academic exploration is a core value, we envision our course registration system as a meritocratic playground — challenging, yes, but ultimately fair. Yet when it comes to long-term academic growth, the system reveals a quiet contradiction: students with the most time left at Andover often have the fewest opportunities to explore a discipline fully.
At Andover, Seniors get priority for course selection. It’s a long-standing policy, and one that seems equitable on the surface. After all, Seniors are in their final year. Shouldn’t they get first pick? Maybe. But when it comes to elective sequences — classes that build on one another over time — this policy has unintended consequences:. It quietly sidelines everyone else. When a senior takes an entry-level elective just to “try something new,” they’re often claiming a seat in a course that serves as a required gateway for more advanced study. For a younger student, especially a freshman or Lower trying to build a multi-term elective sequence, that single missed opportunity may be the end of the road. They don’t have four open class slots left to try again. They don’t have time to wait. The policy actively blocks students trying to plan ahead, pushing them aside in favor of students who won’t be around long enough to finish the sequence they are starting.
Take Computer Science for example. To enroll in CSC600, the department’s culminating Research and Development course, a student must complete four terms of Computer Science before their Senior spring. To make that happen, you need to start no later than tenth grade. Every student needs one term of an introductory course (400-level), at least two terms of intermediate courses (450–499 level), and one term of an advanced course (550–599) minimum. Then, and only then, do you qualify to take CSC600. The math is simple. The access is not. Intro-level CSC classes are capped, often oversubscribed, and — most importantly — prioritized for Seniors. So if you’re a tenth grader trying to get started, even knowing it’ll take over a year to reach the end, you may find yourself shut out of the first step in the sequence. The seat goes instead to a Senior trying it “just to see.” A Senior who, by design, will never come back. That’s not just frustrating. It’s deeply illogical.
You’ll find similar barriers in Art elective sequences, Religion and Philosophy, Music, Statistics, and numerous other electives with multi-term arcs. Students hoping to build toward a portfolio, research project, or capstone-level seminar are often blocked from beginning the sequence because someone older gets the seat, regardless of their interest in the subject. The policy doesn’t ask who will stick with the subject. It only asks who’s closer to graduating.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t how Andover operates in core academic areas. In Math, Science, and World Languages, course progression is, thankfully, based on prerequisites, not seniority. You can’t take Spanish-500 if you haven’t passed Spanish-400. But in electives — especially ones that build skills over time — the structure changes. There’s no prerequisite for getting into the first course. And once that course fills, the window may quietly close. By the time some underclassmen are finally able to register, it’s too late. They don’t have enough terms left to complete the sequence before graduation. So they’re forced to choose something else, not because they lost interest, but because they couldn’t get a fair start.
All of this runs directly against the messages students hear from the very first day. “Follow your passion.” “Pursue your interests deeply.” “Plan your academic journey.” However, when those who try to do exactly that are sidelined by a policy designed around class year rather than course structure, the entire system begins to feel like it’s working against the kind of students it’s intended to reward.
This isn’t an argument against exploration. Seniors should absolutely have the chance to try new things before they graduate. A student dabbling in visual art, sampling an engineering class, or discovering philosophy late in their high school journey is a good thing. But giving that student first access to a seat that another student needs to start a sequence is an interruption, not an exploration.
So what’s the solution? It’s not complicated. Elective sequences, especially those that span multiple terms and culminate in a capstone or advanced project, should be treated differently during the registration process. Students who have the time to complete the sequence and demonstrate a clear trajectory should receive priority for entry-level and mid-level elective courses. Seniors can still take those classes, but not at the expense of students who are actually in a position to complete what they’ve started.
This doesn’t require a major overhaul of the system, only recognizing that some courses are more than one-term samplers. They serve as starting points in a longer journey. And when that’s true, the system should support the people trying to walk that path, not reward those who jump in at the last minute just because they can. Seniority is a fair idea in theory. But fairness isn’t about who gets to go first, it’s about who gets the opportunity to grow. Let the students who can finish the course sequence start it. That’s not just better policy. It’s better education.
