<p>I'll be visiting China this summer and I'm worried about how that'll affect class registration on Aug 4. To get into McIntire, I want to take some prerequisite business classes, as well as fulfill some liberal arts requirements, my first year. I'm praying that the Internet will be reliable in China and that UVA or SIS site won't be blocked. But at the same time, I know that international students and mainland Chinese students would face similar problems. </p>
<p>Could you tell me about the atmosphere when registration begins? Are most classes gone in second or minutes or do we have more time? Do we literally have to compete via the Internet to get the classes we want? Have international students faced registration problems before?</p>
<p>Will you be attending summer orientation, or will you be in China the whole summer? Unless things have changed over the past two years, class registration will occur at orientation. Aug 4 is typically when registration re-opens to all students to add/drop/change sections that they were not previously able to get into. (Registration usually closes toward the end of the Spring semester so that the incoming first years and transfers get something.)</p>
<p>I never registered through SIS, we still were using ISIS in my day, but you can likely expect the system to be slow due to heavy user traffic. You may not be able to get everything you want during those first couple of days, but keep an eye out and you may have better luck as classes begin. There is usually a lot of activity in course registration during the first couple days of classes.</p>
<p>Most course registration for Fall semester takes place within the prior Spring months, so current students naturally have an advantage over incoming first years. However, there is usually quite a few openings in intro/survey courses. You will more than likely be able to get into something from McIntire and other courses to begin fulfilling area requirements.</p>
<p>My family and I are trying to book our vacation days. Long story short, I can either go to China from June-July by myself or July-August with my family. </p>
<p>I hadn’t thought about registering for classes when I was looking at orientation dates - the early dates are during my D’s HS graduation or immediately after so my D was looking in mid-July for the SEAS orientation dates. Will that affect her getting into classes she needs?</p>
<p>You cannot register online prior to attending orientation (unless there is some kind of loophole). Incoming students typically have a course scheduling session and are assigned to meet with a temporary advisor prior to actually registering, so that the students get guidance on what kinds of classes to sign up for and tips to avoid overloading your schedule, particularly until you adjust to UVA. </p>
<p>In my experience, this is how orientation went (rough idea, perhaps not <em>literally</em> how it happens, and keep in mind this does not happen for all courses, it may not apply to small classes, upper level, with numerous pre-reqs, or major/minor only courses):</p>
<p>General Psych - Usually has like 300 students in it, say only 140 seats are filled by current students, leaving 160 for incoming first years/transfers. They usually have X number of seats available for each orientation session, for that date/time of the class. There may be multiple sections of General Psych (so you can see how that may add up to a more significant amount). </p>
<p>Unless that has changed, someone more current will need to verify. It’s designed not to penalize late orientation sessions in terms of course availability.</p>
<p>And as a BTW, you sign up for what you can get during orientation and you cannot change it until August 4 (going based on the date mentioned by the OP). After that, registration re-opens for ALL students. So there is likely some movement in course enrollments at that time (upper classmen changing their schedules, and first years/transfers looking to fix/better their current schedule). Registration at that point remains open until the add-course deadline (which is about a week or two into the semester).</p>