One of them, Fairbank Professor of Chinese Society James L. Watson's Foreign Cultures 62, "Chinese Family, Marriage and Kinship: A Century of Change," turned away more than 200 students.
Baird Professor of Science E. O. Wilson's Science B-15 and Professor of Visual and Environmental Studies Louis J. Bakanowsky's Literature and Arts B-15 were also lotteried.
The lottery is an unfortunate reminder of just how many students pack into the same courses each term, its necessity a result of Harvard's policy of open enrollment.
At other colleges, like Brown and Princeton, classes are pre-registered to maintain a certain size-range.
But, according to registrar's offices at each, Brown and Princeton also keep class sizes considerably smaller than Harvard does.
Indeed, neither campus contains an auditorium that can seat more than 400. And at Brown, the registrar's assistant said, professors repeat their lectures for any course with more than 400 students.