<p>My daughter attends one of the schools listed in the "top liberal arts colleges" category on this website. She adores the school, but getting into the classes she wants has been extremely difficult, due to some over-enrollment coupled with a cumbersome registration system. She usually ends up registering for one, or at most two, classes she's interested in and fills the rest of her semester with classes that she would never have selected otherwise--they just happen to have openings. I'm starting to feel like I'm paying top dollar for a patchwork education. Our friends have a son at a different LAC who is having a similar experience. Is this a widespread problem at LACs? My other daughter is now starting to look at colleges and I'd like to steer her away from such schools, if possible. Are there LACs known for overbooking/putting up registration roadblocks? Are there LACs known for offering their students ample class slots/course selections?</p>
<p>This is not just a problem at LACs, but also many large public schools. One of state schools, UCF, has the nickname “You can’t finish” because so many kids have to take an extra semester or more to graduate because they cannot get the classes they need in time. I think this is a fairly common problem these days.</p>
<p>This is a problem at more that just LACs. State flagships have this issue, as well.</p>
<p>I taught at an LAC, and I also advised new freshman. In my experience, LACs have a hard time in this area. It’s really challenging is to get kids into the classes they want/need without sacrificing small class sizes. Obviously, the ideal solution (in a non-economic world!) would be to just hire more professors. What realistically happens is that freshman and sophomores often don’t get the classes they want (although nearly every LAC will ensure that they get the classes that they need). </p>
<p>But - and I’m serious about this - if you and your children can’t also see this annoying glitch as an opportunity to explore something new, then maybe a liberal arts education isn’t really for you.</p>
<p>Elder son had the experience of wanting a certain class, but there weren’t enough kids signed up to make it happen. With the prof’s participation, he and the prof were able to convince enough other kids to sign up so that the class could happen. It might not hurt to talk to the prof and explain the situation and see if they can find enough interested students to add a section.</p>
<p>Happykid has not had this problem yet at her CC. However, she does register as soon as the schedule is available. She also has been successful at getting pre-reqs. waived because she makes a point of asking the specific instructor. Students who don’t register early, or don’t meet with the instructors, or don’t bother to put themselves on waitlists for classes that are full, do have a lot more trouble with registration.</p>
<p>A student who consistently has difficulty scheduling coursework in his/her major field needs to sit down with the department advisor and get help. There may well be a work-around for the scheduling problem.</p>
<p>Is your daughter a first year or a sophomore? This is a pretty common problem to have early on, and tends to dissipate over time. I had trouble getting into the courses I wanted as a first year, but by sophomore year it was easy. I had also worked out which classes to register for online first to ensure I got spaces in the limited ones. Sometimes it just takes experience and strategy. </p>
<p>Also, you have to keep in mind that it’s not really an institutional practice per se, but a lot of colleges (LACs and Universities included) are seeing the recession screw with their student planning. If they planned for a certain number of juniors to be studying abroad for example, many are now seeing that, due to cost, a smaller group go away, which puts pressure on not just classes but also housing. </p>
<p>To some extent you just have to bear up and do your best. You won’t get into many of the classes you want and sometimes it’s those unexpected classes that lead to unlooked for educational gains.</p>
<p>This complaint is no at all uncommon from students attending large public scools, but I have heard it only rarely regarding top LAC (most recently about Oberlin and Earlham). A friend’s D who transferred to Wesleyan as a soph had some initial difficulty with course selection/availability (maybe related to prereqs), but that was only for the first semester.</p>
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<p>S&P - - my D didn’t even have a problem her first semester: she tooka FYS and a couple of 100 level courses, all with pref registration for first-years and sophs. As a senior, she has focused on courses in her major and minor(pref to jrs/srs; sometimes pref to those in the major/minor). She found those preferred student designations quite helpful.</p>
<p>I’ve heard that this is common at the LACs and that the students shouldn’t just take what’s available at registration. My S always contacts the professors of the classes that were full at registration and gets on their waiting lists. He has eventually gotten into every class he’s wanted except one, which he took the following semester. In a couple of cases enough kids emailed the professor that they added another session.</p>
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My daughter has never had a problem getting into classes at her huge state U. Her schools has a staggered system where students with priority enrollment (honors students, student athletes) can enroll first, then it is based on the number of hours with the students with higher hours being able to enroll first. I think her first couple of years the priority enrollment from being in the honors college probably did help.</p>
<p>yup - if you are just a “regular” student, you ain’t so lucky…</p>
<p>S1 had no problem getting courses at UChicago, S2 has no problem last semester or this at Tulane (where he is a freshman). Both are larger than an LAC, but smaller than most State U’s, perhaps that makes a difference.</p>
<p>The liberal arts colleges typically have smaller classrooms. The small classrooms may complicate problems when there is a very popular professor teaching one class that turns away students, and a couple other professors who are not well liked who are teaching similar classes that have plenty of room.</p>
<p>Where I went to college, the most popular professors were given the biggest classrooms. As a result, there was only one case in 4 years when I couldn’t get in a class I wanted. In that case, I just had to wait until I was a sophomore and then I got into the class.</p>
<p>I am been pleased to hear from my freshman who attends a national private university (medium/large size category) that registering for courses has not been a problem. It is on the quarter system - don’t know if that makes a difference - and for the fall quarter my student was in the last pool of students to do the actual registering, so things REALLY worked out well. What’s more, I believe all my students courses are taught by professors so the academics seem very good.</p>
<p>D at state flagship. Not in honors. The online registration system is very efficient and registration is staggered. Honors goes first, then it is by completed credit hours. Some courses have priority for majors for a time. Freshman with AP or IB or DE credit have a leg up from the beginning. She has never had an issue. She did have to take an 8 AM class once, and after that she always got the classes and reasonable times Lots of sections, and they often have sections listed with no seats. They are the ones they will open if the others fill. Everyone she knows who still needed a class they did not get was able to get it during drop/add when students are changing majors, or did not get a grade they needed to move on, etc. She has never had to fill up her schedule with classes she would never have taken. Given her major and her minor and her certificate, there was little wiggle room.</p>
<p>i will admit that I have watched the number of seats left start to drop, and wondered if she would get that perfect schedule a few times. But sure enough, her window opened before the class filled.</p>
<p>“But - and I’m serious about this - if you and your children can’t also see this annoying glitch as an opportunity to explore something new, then maybe a liberal arts education isn’t really for you”</p>
<p>Interesting point. So if your daughter doesn’t want to fill her schedule with classes in subjects she’s not interested in, and maybe take an extra year to graduate, while taking those classes she doesn’t want to (and paying for that extra time), maybe a liberal arts education isn’t really for you? </p>
<p>And here I thought a liberal arts education would allow one to pursue their interests in diverse subjects they had a desire to learn more about.</p>
<p>I never had a problem getting the classes I wanted at UR without preferred or early reg., but I was also very strategic when it came to registration. I planned out my schedule in advance, had the course numbers jotted down ready to enter, and I woke up at the crack of dawn so I could register as soon as I possibly could.</p>
<p>I have a senior at a LAC who has not had this problem - at least not to the degree the OP states. He hasn’t always gotten his first choices, but he has always gotten at least 3 out of 4 classes he wants/needs. Twice he had 3 classes he really wanted to take and they were all offered at the same time 
but usually he ends up with 4 classes he wants/needs. </p>
<p>My D is a freshman at a mid-size (5000 students) university. She was in the last group to register for spring classes, and it appeared she was closed out of every class in her major that she was eligible to take. But she went to see the head of the dept, who gave her a form allowing her to sign up for whatever section of one class she wanted. She chose a section and registered for it with no problem, ending up with all of the classes she wanted/needed for the semester (albeit not necessarily at the times she wanted).</p>
<p>Like Swimcatsmom’s D, my D has benefitted from honors college enrollment preference, but the university also “blocked” classes for freshmen in many majors – if you were an Econ major, for example, you could sign up for a blocked set of courses that included a specific section of Microeconomics, another of Freshman Comp, and a third of a Freshman Seminar for Econ students, and the spaces in those sections were reserved for students taking that block. I also give her school a lot of credit for offering enough seats and sections in high need freshman/sophomore classes to keep kids on track for graduation in four years.</p>
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<p>This has been my experience also–friend’s kids have attended large public and private universities; my kids are at smaller private colleges. Her kids are at the computer as soon as registration “opens” for whatever priority group they belong to. By the time they get on the computer, some courses are already filled up with more senior class members. </p>
<p>Thank goodness my kids haven’t had that problem. I would be seriously MAD if I were paying $50K per year and my kid couldn’t get classes! One problem with a smaller school, though, is that you may not be able to take a class you want if the professor just happens to on sabbbatical when you wanted to take it…</p>