Registration changes to lower competitiveness, confusion

University officials have changed the enrollment process to address issues that arose last semester during registration.

Officials split registration for summer and fall classes to five days instead of three.

• Enrollment will open for honors and graduate students April 4.
• Incoming seniors can register April 5,
• juniors on April 6,
• sophomores on April 7,
• and open enrollment for undergraduate and graduate students will be April 8. Enrollment opens at 7:30 a.m. each day.

The purpose of the five-day enrollment period is to alleviate some of the competitiveness and confusion that came with enrollment last semester when many students tried to enroll in one course at once, Registrar Charlie Monnot said.

He said:

Last enrollment period for the Spring 2016 semester, all three sections of the integrated science lab course were filled within the first five minutes of the junior/senior enrollment day. This enrollment period we are assigning each class level their own enrollment day. We hope this will alleviate the rush and give us time to open new sections if needed.”

Lindsay Steinburg, acting freshman, said the old registration system forced her to stop what she was doing when enrollment opened to get into classes.

“I was at pom that morning and our coach let us stop practice and register for classes,” she said. “We all ran our 2 miles and then sat down at our laptops and registered.”

Even though registering for classes several months ahead may seem early, there are advantages to this, Monnot said.

“Many students are not around for the summer, so this allows them to schedule their classes while still on campus,” he said. “If students have questions or problems, they will be able to get help more easily now than during the summer.”

Since there are fewer students on campus during the summer, there aren’t as many course options as there are during the traditional academic year. There are 65 courses offered in the summer compared to 891 in the fall.

Monnot said he suggests students enroll the day enrollment opens for them.

“If the course does fill up, you can always talk to the department to see if there might be another section opening or if they can place you on a waitlist for the course,” he said.