<p>I appreciate SOAR in that it is a great way to help incoming freshmen students make a transition but I find it overly constraining that students cannot register until their SOAR date. Take my son for example who has taken a number college credit courses and knows exactly his roadmap in terms of a major and required coursework. Well, as each day goes by we can see that upper level courses which he wants to take are becoming closed which limits his plans severely. (He wants to double major and now he is delayed by a year since he can't get into the courses he needs which in turn jeopardizes his ability to pull off the double major.)</p>
<p>I wish UW Madison had a way to give flex to students who know what they need to take and have done their homework. Instead, waiting and waiting and not being allowed to register is penalizing such students. Ugh.</p>
<p>I’d email SOAR your legit concerns.</p>
<p>I agree with your concerns. When I talked with my HS advisor, she said the only negative that she hears pretty consistently about Wisconsin is being able to get the classes you want to take Freshman year.</p>
<p>The only way that I’m aware of trying to somewhat alleviate the issue is to get the earliest possible SOAR date. Even then, several of the ‘200’ level courses I was interested in were full.</p>
<p>As other posters have replied (and I expect will reply)…yes- you can find courses to take, but they may not be the best choices for you (and I’m not referring to time of day). Perhaps the super flexible general ed requirements are based on the difficulty in getting classes.</p>
<p>I know other posters have replied that new sections will continue to be opened up during the summer based on registration patterns. That may indeed be true for some courses. I can report that I’ve been following 5 “200” level courses that were full before the first SOAR session was held…and they are still full with no new sections being added.</p>
<p>In fairness to Wisconsin and the SOAR program, other schools have similar issues. Other schools do a random lottery for a registration slot, several do the signup for a slot (like SOAR), a couple of schools assign a day/time based on when you accept your offer of admission, and some smaller schools open up registration for all incoming Freshman at the same time. Kinda like football tickets at Wisconsin!</p>
<p>The one piece of advice that I would pass along to next year’s incoming Freshman, the most important signup date/time is the day that SOAR registration opens up. Signup for the earliest slot, even if it means missing a day of HS. After watching what’s happened to friends with late June slots, I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like for the people who have August slots.</p>
<p>No need to reply with posts of “there are many interesting courses still available”, “try something new”…as BadgerDad1 pointed out, for those with a plan, it can be incredibly frustrating.</p>
<p>@barrons – I will email SOAR folks and advising.</p>
<p>@madisonman22 – You are spot on. I really appreciate you cutting off at the pass the potential response of “there are many other interesting courses…” It doesn’t apply here. My son is unable to take the first set of courses required towards the major upon which other courses use these first set as a prerequisite. So, there are not other courses. As a result, he is pushed back a year into jumping into courses and major he has been so eager to pursue.</p>
<p>I understand your concerns.</p>
<p>When my son wanted to take courses that were full, he had luck with emailing the professor and explaining why he needed/wanted the course and asking for enrollment permission.</p>
<p>You can find professors’ email addresses here:</p>
<p>[Directory:</a> : University of Wisconsin?Madison](<a href=“http://www.wisc.edu/directories/]Directory:”>Directory Search - University of WisconsinâMadison)</p>
<p>My daughter is trying to get into a full class this fall as well. She is on the waitlist and emailed the professor (in Spanish) explaining she is on the wait list and needs the class for her major and asked if she can attend the first two weeks waiting for a spot to open up. She received a very nice reply so she is hopeful that her efforts will pay off.</p>
<p>I also suggest sending the email ‘from’ the wiscmail account.</p>
<p>For future reference (only helpful to the incoming students next year who are Madison area residents and want to go to summer school):</p>
<p>After you are admitted to UW Madison, you can request that your start date be changed from Fall 2013 to Summer 2013. What happens is that your matriculation date is moved up and you can register for Fall 2013 classes in April instead of waiting until SOAR. My daughter did this and took two summer classes last year. She was able to register for her fall classes before any SOAR sessions began. Also, since she took Spanish 226 in summer, she got all of the retro credits applied in early fall (and AP credits), so when she received her Spring semester registration time slot in November, she had Junior standing.</p>