<p>Sheesh, the first three BU orientations take place while my son’s high school is still in session! So the soonest he can easily attend is the 4th one, out of 6 or 7 total? </p>
<p>Will he be out of luck with the better courses/sections/profs if three previous orientation groups get to register before he does? (We checked ratemypr0fessor dot com and are concerned in particular about a freshman science lab class he has to take. Half of the lab sections have a wonderful teacher, the other half get a hellish one.) </p>
<p>He has the opportunity to go up to Boston to the earlier, 2nd orientation session because of how final exams play out, and he has those three days free. BUT it would be a big stress to get him up to boston and back home for school days he can not miss before and after. If he waits instead until school is over, he can travel up to boston with one of his friends who will also be attending bu (This kid’s schedule didn’t work out to go up early, unfortunately). </p>
<p>If he waits until the 4th orientation session. he says he won’t be stressed or rushed, and when orientation is over he/they can stay the weekend with his big brother who has an apartment by Tufts this summer. Boston <em>is</em> absolutely spendid in june. :)</p>
<p>We are going back and forth about this, and just don’t know to do… advice please???</p>
<p>Yes, the later you sign up for the orientation, the less choices your son would have when he register for class. What class/which professor are you referring to? Most freshman science classes are very large classes so there really aren't many professors who are "much more difficult" than others with the exception of a few very easy classes. For example, in CH101, Professor Wang is much easier than Professor Dill. But, again, the freshman science class instructors will not make a huge difference in the difficulty of the class.</p>
<p>So, my point is that it doesn't really matter whether your son attends Orientation 2 or 4 because there will be plenty of spaces left in most freshman classes even by orientation 4. As long as he doesn't sign up for Orientation 7 or 8 (which I did), he should have plenty of chances to tweak his schedule around. If your son has difficulty adjusting his schedule for the second orientation, I think orientation 4 is just fine for him.</p>
<p>I say don't worry about it. By the 4th one the selection won't be bad.</p>
<p>Pikachusbutt: is it true that you had a problem because of going during the last session???! My D cannot attend until 7/25 (she is on a long-planned graduation trip abroad for all the june dates, and then my husband & I have conflicts for the earlier July dates). I just called BU and the young woman insisted that my D will not have any problems since "as soon as classes fill up, they open up additional ones" to accomodate the freshman. Is this not true?? Anyone else out there register late as a freshman??</p>
<p>Everyone else has already registered for classes. Please do not worry. The school would not purposly screw you over. The classes that freshman will be taking will have spots for them. Many schools, such as SMG and COM, have a required freshmen course, obviously you are guarenteed to get a spot in the class.</p>
<p>I guess I'm concerned that attending a later orientation will mean that all but the "worst" freshman class times/professors will have been taken by the freshmen who sign up in the prior sessions. (I hadn't even thought of this until reading the above comment that someone had a problem because of signing up last, and now of course I'm obsessing and assuming the worst!) My D is in school of A&S -- so you don't think I should worry about getting a bad schedule of classes if she goes to the last session? (Thank you for the info!)</p>
<p>Yes, there will be classes...except your D would probably be stuck with 8 am classes or classes during awkward hours. That was the problem with me. Especially in english class where the class size is around 20, the options run away pretty quick as 7 orientations go by. So, the answer to your question is yes. There are less options with time / scheduling / professors during the last two orientations.
But please don't worry. What I meant in the previous post is that you'd have less options to tweak you schedule around if you sign up for late orientations. It's not like if you won't get the classes you want.</p>
<p>orientation session 4 will still be fine in its course selection. the last session may have limited options though. if u don't have any special plans or anything, i'd recommend to choose an earlier session. but if u can't make it to an earlier one, don't worry about it too much.</p>
<p>if u don't get what u want during orientation, over the summer u can check studentlink (<a href="http://bu.edu/studentlink%5B/url%5D">http://bu.edu/studentlink</a>) every day to see if someone drops the class u want. i've always gotten exactly what i wanted by doing this.</p>
<p>they'll show u how to register for classes at orientation. afterwards, just use the same way on your own during the summer to either drop a class or register for another one.</p>
<p>hiya, it's not the class, it's the section, cuz one section has a good lab instructor and the other has a bad one. so, during the summer, if kiddo keeps checking studentlink for an opening with the good instructor he can just change sections?
thanks!</p>
<p>Thanks very much Pika & Nathan -- that's kind of what I feared the lady at BU was not coming right out and telling me. All of the June dates are impossible for us because D's out of the country, but we're going to change to the first session in July -- we'll have to fly out early Friday morning to get back to AZ for other "must attend" stuff, but it seems that its OK to miss just BU's Friday morning schedule -- if anyone disagrees, please speak up. Again, thanks to everyone for the info.</p>
<p>I just answered my own question -- can't miss Friday morning. That's the actual registration. Duh! So only the last session will work, and we'll just have to hope for the best that acceptable class times, etc. will still be available.</p>
<p>lobodog, if your D has no conflicts for earlier July sessions, and you do, maybe she should go without you. There will be other students flying in or driving in alone. Or maybe you all go out and let her stay for the registration on Fri after you leave, and she comes back later. Just a thought.</p>
<p>Yes, that's a good idea. No reason for one of us (a parent to be there on Friday). Ok, now I need to look into changing and airlines. thanks -- I clearly have tunnel vision on all of this!</p>
<p>yeah parents don't actually get to spend much time at all with their kids at orientation. There's a seperate program for each.</p>
<p>After all this back and forth, we have to stick with session #7 after all due to scheduling problems at this end. However, the BU registration people again assured me this morning they really do have lots of classes for A&S so not to worry (as did lostandfound5 above -- thank you!). So we're just going to have to trust BU, go at end of July and think positive.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that you can monkey with your schedule. As people switch in and out of classes, different sections open up. If you're unhappy or doubtful about a section time or teacher, then you keep checking your student link and playing with it until you get something you want.</p>
<p>Thank you -- that is great to know. So for now, I'm just going to stop worrying and assume D will have a great orientation experience. After all, what could be better than July along the Charles, and in your first college dorm! (Although too bad the Red Sox are not in town then!).</p>
<p>Your kids will be registering for classes online. DS did this prior to his freshman year after the first orientation session (he was going to Tanglewood and was actually attending the last orientation session, but went up in June to register for classes with permission). Even then, he found all his needed classes except English (required). The advisor told him to go home and keep checking online until something opened up. The reality is that as the summer goes on, some kids decide to change their schedules, and classes and sections are sometimes added. Tell your kid to just keep checking online if they want to make a change. NOW having said all that, DS finally found an English class in July...actually bought all of the books to read (Southern Slave Trade). He got a nice email right before he left here telling him that the prof for that course had resigned and everyone in it had been reassigned to Russian Literature. So much for being prepared early.</p>
<p>question: after registering for your courses next year, can you order your textbooks right away? do you KNOW which textbooks you'll be using after knowing which section/class/professor you're going to have? how do you find out? or do you not know until the first week of class...</p>
<p>Yes you can. Most professors list out the books they need a while into the summer. It's usually listed on the studentlink website along with your schedule. If not, there's always upper classmen who have taken the same classes as you in BU.</p>