<p>Many of us parents will be watching this enrollment situation very closely… Again, I understand the larger than expected entering freshman class; however, they will need to add additional sections of some courses with the added revenue generated (if warranted).</p>
<p>Every four-five years they get an “overenrolled freshmen class.” Back in 2005 I believe, they were offering then sophomores living on the forty a discount on housing if they moved off campus because they said they had too big of a freshmen class…not sure what ended up happening. </p>
<p>As for adding section…most of the time they’ll increase class size…only rarely will they add a section which they didn’t originally plan on adding. Who is teaching what is generally set months-year in advance. I can understand that you want your money’s worth as paying 40-50k should theoretically get you the classes your child wants, but in the end it’ll work itself out.</p>
<p>As marc said, they’ll increase class size. The only time they’ll really ever add sections is if they’re adding lab sections, which doesn’t affect who is teaching it.</p>
<p>They will add sections for things like writing classes, however. They know that they need a certain number of sections for all the freshmen who have to take writing 1, but they’ll cap it at 15 per section as usual.</p>
<p>Similarly, they just added an extra tech writing section (because they’re idiots and didn’t know in advance how many bme’s were going to need take tech writing this semester, even though they should have known this). Those classes are also capped at 15 a section (and there’s still some 15 people looking to get into tech writing.</p>
<p>Speaking of which…my tech writing class had less than 10 people…made it so much more enjoyable. But yeah, you’ll generally always be able to complete the courses you want within your four years at Wash U. You just have to be flexible with regards to both time of the class, and semester the class is taken. You’ll never need to spend more than four years at Wash U due to not having enough classes, which is something unfortunately true for many schools.</p>