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<li><p>Do classes divide their seats among registration windows or are the 30 or so seats available from the start, and the last registration window gets screwed? I literally only have one possible class combination I can do since Focus won't let me change my schedule around. There are already 4/30 registered for the Calc 2 class I need.</p></li>
<li><p>How does validation work and what is it? I'm in Europe doing this and I don't have my Blue Book</p></li>
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<p>Not sure about validation since I graduated a few years ago and we didn’t have to do it back then. </p>
<p>But assuming the registration system hasn’t changed, then there are no apportionment of seats among registration windows. It’s first come first served and yes, the later registration windows do get the short end of the stick. That’s why the registration windows rotate (except for varsity athletes who must coordinate their schedules for games and practices). </p>
<p>The best I can say is that you have several options:</p>
<p>1) Rearrange your class schedules so that you’ll have at least one alternative. You may think that you NEED to take certain classes because they are recommended, required, popular, etc. But if you look at it purely from the perspective of what do you absolutely MUST have in order to graduate (including stuff like require advanced planning like premed or study abroad) and what are all the possible classes you can take to satisfy your requirements, chances are you can find an alternate schedule. It may not be what you like, you may need to take that 8:30 or 5:30 class, you may need to take that hard class, but if you must, then you must. </p>
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<li><p>If this class doesn’t have a lab component or recitation that are physically space-limited (and I don’t mean flexible enrollment caps). Then the professor may have the flexibility to over-enroll by a few people assuming there’s space in the classroom. You may want to email the professor ahead of time and ask if he/she is willing to do that or how crowded he/she thinks the class will be. I’ve even seen professors ask for volunteers on the first day of class to switch to other sections of the same course if someone really MUST take a class that’s full that that particular time slot.</p></li>
<li><p>Keep a close eye on the enrollment numbers leading up to your registration and be really really really quick about clicking that mouse. One thing to remember, don’t keep clicking that mouse if the page is slow to load because that’ll just submit new requests to the server to place you in the queue. And since the server will only acknowledge your newest request doing this means that you’ll keep being bumped to the end of the line if you click the button persistently. Best thing to do is to click early and be patient.</p></li>
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<p>“validation” just means the system checks that none of your classes are at overlapping times or anything. I think the blue book is available online somewhere if you’d like to have a look at it.</p>