We find it troubling that many students remain confused by the policies that the Government Department has adopted for choosing thesis writers. The lack of certainty about the criteria the department uses to evaluate candidates not only makes the process more stressful for students, since they are unaware of the criteria required to write an honors thesis, but it also suggests that the professors may not have a fully standardized process for selecting students. We are not arguing that the process for selecting thesis writers should be standardized across departments; rather, we are urging Government professors to be open about their modes of evaluation so that students know what is required of them and the stressful process of thesis writing becomes a bit more manageable.
What we do know is that students’ GPAs are a significant factor in the Government professors’ decision process. While a student’s GPA must obviously be taken into account, we feel that grades alone should carry too much weight in the decision process. GPAs are just one indicator of a student’s work ethic and potential to write a good thesis, but this indicator must be balanced with other facets of a student’s record in order provide a more accurate evaluation of that student. The fact is, some students with high GPAs do not possess an academic background well-suited for the thesis writing process, and some with lower GPAs have the capacity to write great theses.
In addition, there are particular weaknesses involved with evaluating students based on universal and departmental GPAs. Choosing candidates based on their universal GPA could result in the acceptance of students who pad their grade average with easier classes, and, ultimately, it makes more sense to evaluate candidates based on their academic success in the department in which they would write a thesis. However, evaluating candidates based on departmental GPAs poses issues as well, since some transfer students have not taken enough classes in a particular department for their GPAs to be accurate portrayals of academic promise.
In the end, the process for choosing thesis candidates should be as flexible as possible, allowing students to propose projects and have those projects evaluated on their merits. Further, faculty should be free to advise the students of their choice with minimal bureaucratic interference. Since the thesis writing process is unlike anything students have previously done in their academic careers, the standards for evaluating candidates, both in the Government Department and others, should be driven by a holistic analysis of a candidate’s background and must be clarified for students so that they can work towards embodying the characteristics of the ideal thesis candidate.
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