,??9
"Yes, Your Highness, the competition was extremely fierce."
In the reception hall of Grand Trianon Palace, Leroy, President of the French Academy of Sciences, respectfully placed a stack of documents before Joseph. "In fact, Mr. Delnave and I came precisely for this matter."
The President of the University of Paris immediately added, "Your Highness, you see, our Academy of Sciences only has eighteen doctoral slots this time, but the professors in charge of review and I believe that among the applicants, at least thirty are exceptionally qualified—"
"We were thinking that perhaps they should be given a chance."
Joseph nodded. "Please tell me your proposal."
Delnave hurriedly said, "Quite a few people support increasing the number of doctoral students each advisor supervises—for example, allowing every advisor to take on five students."
"We are cultivating the finest talents, so ensuring that advisors have sufficient energy must come first. That method is unsuitable."
Joseph knew full well that in an age where communication, archiving, and reference searches were all terribly inefficient, it was already the limit for one doctoral advisor to properly supervise three students.
As he spoke, Joseph casually opened the document. It was this year's list of doctoral applicants.
He skipped over the literature and law applications and went straight to the science and engineering section.
There were a total of 146 applications, and more than seventy had been judged by the review committee to be "worth cultivating."
Yet this year, all of France was admitting only forty-four science and engineering doctoral students.
Delnave and Leroy exchanged a glance. After a light cough, the former continued, "Your Highness, some have proposed another solution.
"This time, foreigners occupy thirty-five percent of the doctoral slots. If their proportion were appropriately reduced—"
"So many foreigners?"
Joseph turned to the next page of