<p>Can anyone explain how/when incoming freshman select courses and register for them?</p>
<p>This may be a silly question, and our D may already have some idea, but as a parent I'd love to get a clearer picture of how this will work for the first quarter. Do the kids do course selection/ registration before arriving for Wildcat Welcome?</p>
<p>Thanks in advance for any insight you can offer!</p>
<p>You register during wildcat welcome week.</p>
<p>Academic advisors help everyone create a general plan for what courses to take and help every student decide what classes to take the first quarter. And this all happens during Wildcat Welcome, Sept 12-19.</p>
<p>Ah, thanks! </p>
<p>Someone mentioned “being lucky enough to get a good registration number” in order to get admitted to high-demand courses on another thread. Does that apply during Wildcat Welcome as well, or do all incoming freshmen have an equal shot at all classes the first quarter?</p>
<p>No, freshmen also get registration numbers - which as I remember give you the right to register during a specific time slot (like a 15-20 minute period). I remember my son calling me a bit panicked when he easily registered for his first 3 classes but then found himself shut out of the classes he had scribbled down for the 4th. I was at the office at the time and pulled up the NU catalog on my computer, and starting tossing out course ideas - “History?” “German?” (that got a “What?!” from my son). It all worked out - the 4th class ended up being one he really liked. I think his advice would be to have a good list of extra classes to cover this situation.</p>
<p>If you are in WCAS, you register for your freshman seminar over the summer, and find out which one you are in by late August, so you will have one class set before arriving on campus. The freshman seminar professor will be your advisor for freshman year.</p>
<p>And no matter how bad your registration time is, you WILL be able to get into that 4th class if you need it. You can also wait for the first week of classes and maybe slip into a spot vacated by an upperclassmen who is switching spots, too.</p>
<p>I only got into three of the courses I wanted during my actual registration time. My fourth class I added days later on a whim, Russian Lit. It turned out to be an amazing class. The scary rush of registration can actually get you somewhere you didn’t expect to be.</p>
<p>Encouraging advice all around – and good to have warning that D should pick some alternate courses just in case. </p>
<p>Did most of you arrive at Wildcat Welcome with a preliminary list of courses you wanted or did you figure it all out once you were there?</p>
<p>I had some schedules planned out because I had nothing to do in the weeks after my friends went to school (babysitting job was over, and everyone was gone!), but most people don’t come in with classes picked, much less whole schedules. The courses up are up for browsing whenever she gets access to Caesar, so she has time to peruse and pick some if she’d like…if she doesn’t, then she will definitely get some help during Wildcat Welcome week with her major’s requirements, and then go in for academic advising that will help her decide what she should pick if she is still up in the air.</p>
<p>Additionally, Welcome Week is nice in that you are forced to spend time around a lot of upperclassmen (the peer advisers are primarily sophomores, with a few juniors/seniors tossed in) who have taken at least three quarters of classes and should have plenty of advice to give their advise-ees. Some dorms might also do “live CTECs”, where upperclassmen make themselves available for a Q&A about classes.</p>
<p>Students in WCAS who are also in special programs (e.g. ISP, MMSS) will not have their freshman seminar the first quarter and will have them the second and third quarters. My guess is that this is so these students can become grounded in their special programs (in the case of the Integrated Science Program I know that’s the case.)</p>
<p>I think my S said by sometime next year (sophomore year) he may end up with three advisors, one for WCAS, one for the ISP major and one for whatever he chooses for his second major (leaning towards math.)</p>