Because the course is taught by Dennis Ross, who was a key player in shaping U.S. involvement in the Middle East peace process, Berger says selecting students in past years had been a challenging task.

“[Ross] was looking through the applications and he had the hardest time picking, because he said the quality of the students here is great,” he says. “This is a wonderful problem to have, but at the same time it’s like picking between 18-carat gold and 14-carat gold.”

Supply and Demand

Before professors began selecting students for their limited enrollment courses several years ago, the registrar’s office assigned students spots.

McCarthy uses an economic analogy to describe changing control over course enrollment—shifting between regulation and deregulation.

“We said, ‘well you know, faculty should have that discretion,’’ he says. “So we tried it. It chugged along.” Until this fall, when “the free trade economy collapsed.”

Why did the faculty-centered system break down? Some say a disproportionate distribution of sections taught by well-known faculty in the fall contributed to the problem. Others suggest that fewer sections of a few popular courses were offered.

All agree that demand far exceeded supply.

And the demand often followed particularly popular faculty members—a problem which Paganelli says could not be easily fixed.

“While the school can bring in other faculty members to offer certain popular classes...what you cannot do is reproduce certain personalities,” he says.

But Paganelli and others who shaped the new system say it will provide a more level playing field to students seeking class time with some of the Kennedy School’s top professors.

For Greeley, at least, the changes have paid off. She was accepted into both of the limited enrollment classes she chose this semester.

“For taking a very severe problem and giving it an immediate fix that is equitable, I think this worked out really well,” she says.

—Staff writer William C. Martin can be reached at wmartin@fas.harvard.edu.