<p>I looked up UVA in Fiske's Guide to Colleges and it said this:</p>
<p>Spanish, economics, and politics have university-provided waitlists because their class sizes never accommodate the demand of students wanting to enroll.</p>
<p>Would you say that this is true?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>I was lucky to get into the economics class I wanted, but it is true that there are waitlists.</p>
<p>I would say it’s true–
One of my best friends is a government major and she never gets into the classes she wants, even as a rising 4th year with over 120 credits.
My roommate took spanish and she had a hard time with scheduling. In addition, previously mentioned friend could not get into Spanish her first semester. It actually was for the better, though, (she says so too!), because we met in our Hebrew class!!
I don’t know anyone taking Econ but I’m sure it’s hard to get the discussion you want with Elzinga. Your first year in general is hard to get into things… I think it shows more when it’s still hard to get into things past then (like Politics).</p>
<p>There are ways around it at times though. There were a few times when I was able to get into a class via ISIS and completely bypassing the existing waitlist, but it involves stalking the COD when it updates at like 6 or 7am and then jumping on ISIS. Also, when registration re-opens in August, ISIS would always be sooo slow from high traffic, but that’s also a good time to try and sneak into classes.</p>
<p>It worked well for me, during transfer orientation I had gotten into only 1 or 2 classes that I actually cared about, but by the start of the Term I had one of the most popular politics classes, the econ and statistics course I needed and I was happy (that was until I actually started the infamous Stat 212 and realize my life had gone to hell)</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies. Unfortunately I think i will take that into consideration the time applications come 'round.</p>
<p>UVA is a huge state school. Any other mid-large college will have the same problems. The only one of my friends who hasn’t had course registration problems is the one who goes to a very small private school where the administrators know every family. And by no problems, I mean that she can get into classes, but she is double majoring and thus always has conflicts and is on the phone to try to get them to move classes (which they do for her), but she stalks registration just like all of us now that I think of the stories she’s told me… At another friend’s school (small-mid PA state school) freshman aren’t even allowed to pick their own schedule!! Just so you can take all the facts into consideration.</p>
<p>Also, for many waitlists, there are comment boxes where you can input your class year, major, etc. and professors (especially in upper level courses) tend to give preference to majors/minors who need the course to fulfill requirements, and in the larger departments, there are more than enough courses offered at some point where you should be more than capable of fulfilling those requirements. </p>
<p>I transferred from a small-mid PA state school (East Stroudsburg) and we weren’t allowed to pick first semester classes either, and that school’s drop period was only 2 days instead of like 2 weeks. There generally weren’t many offerings except for countless 100 or 101 introductory courses, and the days/times for classes almost always overlapped. It was pretty hard to avoid getting a bunch of 8am classes. Whereas at UVA, I was often able to squeeze all my classes comfortably into a 3-4 day school week.</p>
<p>Hazelorb- The more I have looked into schools, the more I realize what you said. Although it is inevitable, Im going to stay away from it as much as possible.</p>
<p>I went to orientation last week and am waitlisted for Spanish. If seats open up, will I automatically get one, or can someone jump ahead of me and get an open seat by using ISIS when re-registration opens in August?</p>
<p>Any idea what the chances are of getting into a class if you are #10 on the waitlist?</p>
<p>thank you!</p>
<p>waitlists are automatic, in that if there are 23 people on one and someone new signs up they will be #24 on the waitlist. i don’t know whether it will auto-add you if a spot opens or if it will email you asking to accept like past waitlists have done (you used to have 24 hours to accept the spot or something).</p>
<p>Yeah, those classes always have waitlists. I have a couple of friends who are politics majors… and they have varying degrees of luck when it comes to registering for politics classes. My friend who is echols has gotten every course she wanted (naturally), but some of my non-echols friends never get their first pick. I’m not an econ or politics major, but I took a few classes in those departments… I haven’t had any trouble getting into any of them so far. I guess I’ve just been lucky.</p>
<p>if you’re on the waitlist don’t get your hopes up, it’s better to talk to the professor personally</p>
<p>^^ My advisor said the same with my Spanish class during my orientation. I didn’t get a chance to talk to the prof, but I’ll just try second semester.</p>