First Year Schedule Discussion

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
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@CU123 That looks like a very healthy mix. I can’t recall what major your first-year is looking at, but assuming all sequencing requirements are met, that’s as balanced a schedule as you can create. A lot of humanities/social science majors take three reading/writing classes and one math/science class per quarter, while 1-2 reading- or writing-heavy classes would be typical for STEM majors. This is right in the middle.

Judging by the experiences of friends/housemates, Phil Per is one of the more challenging (and rewarding) HUM sequences, while Greece and Rome is somewhere in the middle.

42

@CU123 my kid has Greece & Rome as her first choice. Definitely specify a third choice as well. You don’t know how all this is going to work out and they have a larger-than-ever class size this year.

My D17’s schedule, FWIW (ranked by choice):

Hum: Greece&Rome, World Lit, Human Being & Citizen
Sosc: Classics, SS Inquiry, Self, Culture & Society
Math: Calc 131

Toying with a science - not sure what she’s going to choose. She’s a social science major so baby chem or a phsc.

She’ll register for 4 classes. FL out of the question this year as Calc. 131 is every-day mandatory and it’s hard to fit in another one.

43

I currently have Introduction to Humanities as my first choice, which is supposed to be the most writing focused HUM course. Does anyone have any first-hand experience or second-hand accounts of this class? It has very few seats, so I haven’t heard much except through course evals. I probably won’t get it, but I’d like to know if it’s worth putting as a first
choice.

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@DunBoyer @JBStillFlying Thanks for the info, she is a STEM major and she’ll have several back ups (in humanities) in case the first choices don’t work.

45

Maybe we’ve been overthinking this pre-registration thing - but has anybody configured their choices where there’s NO CONFLICTS at all? With nine choices each for Hum and Sosc. there’s gotta be some schedules that have class conflicts when you run through the various iterations. My D was striving for something like 2/3 of all possible schedules have no conflicts. She did not run a Martingale or similar simulation (not a STEM kid). In keeping with the UChicago low-tech approach to putting choices and schedules together, she’s eyeballing everything.

46

@JBStillFlying I managed to get my choices pretty conflict free by doing Calc/Chem on MWF and Hum/Econ on Tuesday/Thursday. But I don’t think anyone all the way down the list has everything conflict free. That would be almost impossible.

47

A couple of questions:

If invited to take an Honors class that is part of a sequence (e.g. Calculus 1/2/3), is it required or just highly recommended that the first class in the sequence be an Honors level class? Or can a student start with a regular level class and then switch to an honors level class in a later quarter?

And if D was recommended for three honors level classes, just how (in)advisable is it to do all three if she wants to have some semblance of a life as well?

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@Elmejor21 she’s conflict free for most combinations involving her higher choices but her choice of HUM and the fact that Calc. 131 is every day is really causing several possible back-to-backs. She blocked off time slots instead of days: Hum/Sosc. for afternoons (so trading those off M-W/T-Th but still a potential for a back to back if she ends up with lower choices for both) and then her math/science in the morning (definitely a back-to-back that can’t be helped given the time slots offered). I suppose it’s possible for her to end up with 4 classes on a T-Th or a M-W! However, that means minimal class time on the off days, I suppose. I think she needs to consider that bizarre possibility LOL.

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@JBStillFlying My hope is that my conflicts down the list increase the likelihood of getting my first and second choices for all my classes. I would imagine, to an extent, that it does work that way, as the algorithm tries to minimize conflicts. And if she does have some bizarre combination, she can probably get it changed during O-Week through her advisor.

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@hebegebe it’s always easier to drop honors and pick up non-honors, but you might have to finish whichever sequence you are in after the Add/Drop period in order to have it count for the core? Or can you drop down to regular in Winter? That’s a great question for advising if they haven’t already specified that detail on the pre-reg. website. As only two courses of Math are required for the Core, it’s always possible - if you’ve started with honors and intend to stick with it through 2 quarters - to make the third quarter non-honors.

For your second question, it really comes down to balance. If it were my kid, I’d recommend choosing the honors sequence most appropriate for the major (might be a hard choice for some STEM subjects . . . ). Alternatively, she might do 2 honors but only take three classes to start. We’re finding, however, that even the baby calc. is really accelerated by third quarter. If you can access Chalk, go to course catalog and pull down some of the syllabi for the courses of interest and just take a look at the workload down the road a bit.

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@hebegebe I don’t think anyone has gotten or gets an invite into the second in a series of honors courses. The concept seems to be to go much deeper into the subject matter which precludes starting in the second of a series.

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@elmejor21 that’s what my daughter is hoping - that the conflicts down the list “force” her to get one of her top chocices for nearly everything. Certainly most iterations seem fine - the worrier in me was looking to see what the “worst case” could be. And you are correct there is always her advisor!

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@JBStillFlying @elmejor21

On conflicts:

The registrar had an interview with the Maroon some time ago, which the Maroon paraphrased to suggest that listing more choices would not affect a student’s odds of getting into their top choices.

My academic adviser tells me in no uncertain terms that this isn’t the full story. It’s true that the algorithm doesn’t have a line of code that’s there to penalize you for having other choices when allocating spots in a class. However, pre-registration happens by section, course, and department - in that order - and not by student. This has unintended consequences.

I don’t know the nitty-gritty of the algorithm, but this very strange way of doing things means you can be placed in a lower-ranked course that happens to be processed first, then left out of a conflicting class you ranked higher because you’ve been enrolled in a course you ranked lower. This happens even if there are open spots in the higher-ranked class, leaving the victims to hope their internet connection is 0.5 seconds faster than another unlucky soul’s when add/drop opens. This kept me out of a couple of required courses this year (which I now have to take as a third-year). Even in my case, with a minimally sequenced major and three years to get back on track, it’s beyond frustrating.

54

@DunBoyer - hmm. The students had a pre-registration worksheet in which they were told to list their 1st, 2nd and 3rd choices each for Hum and Sosc. Then within each specific course selection they ranked three sections. That would be nine total sections ranked each for Hum and Sosc. Understandably, my daughter believes that the third ranked section of the first choice is always supposed to be ahead of the first ranked section of the 2nd choice (if that makes sense). However, when she entered everything there was no ranking mentioned in the portal. You just entered nine sections of Hum, and another nine of Sosc.

(Other courses aren’t as complicated. Obviously due to placement for math, you know your course with certainly. Therefore, you only rank by section. Again, there is room on the portal to list three sections, but no apparent ranking).

So what you are saying is that they start with a section of a course and run through the 1650 or so students until they fill it, then move on to another section of that course. The question is whether the algorithm gives any consideration to where that course shows up on the student’s pre-reg. portal (1st, 5th, 9th, etc.) If I’m interpreting you correctly, that particular detail doesn’t seem to matter - if the course is included anywhere on the student’s pre-registration portal, regardless of implied ordering, and there is room in the section, then student is in.

So that means ranking doesn’t matter. Is that correct?

This is mainly an issue with Hum and Sosc. of course.

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I can’t speak with any certainty to the way the system will work for first-years signing up for HUM and SOSC. Old codger that I am, I just showed up at my required adviser meeting last fall and was registered for classes 5 minutes later. We didn’t have fancy stuff like this when I was young.

It’s possible a student’s ranking will help them get into popular times and/or sections, because more than 8-10 students (or however many spots are open to first-years in that particular section) will rank convenient sections highly. But some might be placed in a different section already, and excluded from the first one because the two conflict (even if the current section was their #1 choice). Under the old system.

The pre-registration worksheet and instructions sound like a holdover from last year, when we were told to do exactly the same thing (3 choices, 3 sections) on a piece of paper handed out during our first advising section. However, if the portal doesn’t have any ranking system, I believe the College may actually have tweaked its algorithm and created something that makes a whit of sense (if the goal is to minimize scheduling conflicts). Every third building on campus has gotten some repairs this summer - why not the IT system? Or maybe they’ve implemented a special procedure for first-year HUM/SOSC pre-registration.

In that case, everything in my second paragraph and the post above is moot, and your guess is as good as mine.

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@DunBoyer - From what I can gather, subjects are “ranked” for each student via a survey you take “to provide context for your requests.” Hum is fixed in first place, of course, because it’s required. D believes that listing Sosc before Math or a science or FL would “prioritize” her choices relative to those who listed it lower, so given that every section is already half-filled (where math has plenty of completely open sections), she listed Sosc. 2nd and Math 3rd (rather than the other way 'round which is the “typical” ranking per the online pre-registration guide). My guess is that the system runs through and churns out schedules which are then “tweaked” by the advisors who have access to your “context”. There are three weeks between the end of pre-reg. and schedule release so perhaps that’s what they are doing during that time (unless it takes three weeks for the system to grind through 1650 kids!).

The portal is probably configured the same as for prior years(?) because it’s pretty basic. Hum fields 1-9; Sosc fields 10-18; Math fields 19-21; Phy. Sci. fields 22-23 - only two choices, not sure why; FL fields 24-26; etc. Each field obviously a section. Not sure if the algorithm respects that Hum #4 (corresponds to her 2nd course choice) is higher than #7 (corresponds to third course choice). D was certainly thinking so. However, if section is given priority over course and course over subject, as you are saying, then - absent a system overhaul - I don’t see how either your subject rankings via survey or your course rankings are going to be respected w/o some definite “tweaking” by the advisors.

The worksheet for this summer sounds like the paper that you guys worked on in advising last year. This year they had the kids complete it over the summer with lots of advisors on call and loads of instructions from the website. Assuming first round of tweaking is to respect the “context” from your survey, then the 2nd round of tweaking happens when you meet with your advisor during O-Week. My guess is that any such tweaking would be if you were subsequently approved for a higher placement from your original, or there’s some weird issue with your schedule that requires a definite conversation before proceeding. If you just want better choices than the ones you ended up with (say, you want Hum choice #1 and you ended up with #3), you probably have to take care of that during add/drop.

Does this all make sense? Anyone else have a different understanding?

57

@JBStillFlying

If the current system is anything like last year’s, this should be the case. Although…

This is a new addition to the portal, so the system’s changed at least a little. Last year, everyone walked into an adviser’s office with their #1, #2, #3 sections (HUM and SOSC) and other classes of interest written on a sheet of paper. Advisers then checked the class registration portal to see if those sections/classes had space, placed students in various sections and classes manually, and sent us on our way. To prevent students whose adviser meetings were at the start of O-Week from getting priority over others, SOSC/HUM sections were gradually opened as the week progressed.

This wouldn’t work before students arrive on campus, obviously. The only reason pre-registration during the summer is possible now is because the portal has been revamped for first-years. On the flip side, all sections are being opened at once, since pre-registration occurs “simultaneously.”

I agree that listing SOSC before math is the optimal ranking (see above) but I wouldn’t read too much into the fact sections are half-full. The registrar’s office aims for a balance of first-years and second-years in every SOSC section (though this balance will shift a little as a result of add/drop decisions in September). This means 9-10 spots are usually filled by second-years during pre-registration at the end of Spring Quarter, and then first-years get their shot at the remaining 9-10 places.

There may be some tweaking going on - you’d have to ask College Advising to know for sure. If there’s a survey out there asking about context, it seems likely.

The tweaking isn’t likely to begin for a week or two, though. During the academic year, pre-registration takes place during 8th week of each quarter and schedules are posted sometime during 10th week. The system takes a while.

A word of warning: if a partial schedule suddenly pops up on your D’s My.uchicago page, then disappears or changes, don’t read too much into it. The algorithm will sometimes do its work in plain view - and the process is fairly messy. Schedules, final or otherwise, were posted earlier than planned during the last two rounds of pre-registration.

58

@DunBoyer - thank you for all of that including the warning (just in case she sees something that looks really good, only to find something less optimal the next time).