<p><strong>Especially for current students who have been on waitlists for classes!</strong></p>
<p>I'm a rising sophomore. I'm registered in 2 out of my 4 classes. For each of the other 2 classes, I am #1 on the waitlist.</p>
<p>One of the classes I'm waitlisted on is linguistics, which has 30 people total and is crosslisted in 3 sections with 10 people in each section. I'm #1 on the waitlist for one of those crosslists.
The other class is a 15 person English class that is crosslisted with 10 people in one of the crosslists and 5 people in the other. I'm #1 in the 5 person crosslist.</p>
<p>My academic advisor isn't great and didn't give me advice, so I chose to take the risk and put myself on waitlists. Is this a TERRIBLE idea? I REALLY want those 2 classes... sooooo much! I'd much rather take it now than later because I'm so interested in them. I didn't want to settle because all the other classes I'm interested in are full as well anyway.</p>
<p>If I stay on the waitlists til the beginning of drop/add, what do I do? Obviously, in case I don't get in those classes, I should probably attend other classes as well. And they would have to be at times other than these 2 classes so that I could attend them just in case... . How long do you think I would have to do that for? As in, on average, how long does the waitlisted student have to go to 2343423 classes for?</p>
<p>Please tell me if I'm doing the right thing and what I should be doing during drop/add, including how you guys got off the waitlist (any tricks up your sleeve on how to talk teachers into letting you into the class?)</p>
<p>Usually if there is no space restraint (ie lab space, classroom size) then the teacher will be more open to letting you in. Why not email them and express your interest as well as politely explain your situation and how you need to get this matter settled as soon as possible so that you can look for other classes if necessary. Sometimes, I've seen students who show up anyway to the waitlisted class and eventually the teachers just take them after the first couple of lectures.</p>
<p>you're in great shape, and it's actually a wise idea to be on a waitlist in your positions. i've been on many, many a waitlist over the years and have gotten into a very good majority of those classes. </p>
<p>my advisers have always told me that there's a lot of movement in terms of class registration over the summer -- and it's so true. it's very likely that before you set foot on campus you will be enrolled in a class, because someone will have dropped. </p>
<p>in any case, email the professors and just explain your situation as briefly as possible and ask if they plan on extending a waitlist. (all my emails are essentially just "Hi, I'm a junior and am really interested in this course. I'm currently #2 on the waitlist -- do you plan on extending the list?") unless the course is coded as a seminar and they can't add any more students, or the class is already at fire code capacity, many professors are generally very open to allowing more students. some have a policy to automatically enroll the first 3 or 5 kids. in any case, if you're still on waitlists when classes start, you absolutely must go to the first class and talk to the professor afterwards. sometimes they'll tell you to hang in there and someone will drop, other times you'll get a permission code to enter into aces after the first week. usually after the second class they have a better grasp of whether or not they can admit you, and if you're still waitlisted at the second class, talk to them again -- they will tell you early on if you're not going to be able to enroll, since they realize it's wasting your time.</p>