<p>soozievt- you noticed I said that there are very few situations where this would be a problem not that there is never a situation. And remember I am not suggesting skipping out of an entire class, just stepping out for a few minutes. I doubt that there is an instructor out there who doesnt allow their students to excuse themselves for a visit to the loo.</p>
<p>And it that rare instance which your DD finds herself in(not a single networked computer in the entire building? That is a 1 in 10,000 probability right there!), I see no problem with a parent or trusted friend being asked to do the scheduling "dirty work". ;-)</p>
<ol>
<li>many parents are NOT available for doing the "dirty work" nor should they be. If colleges encourage parents to be involved in such a way, what is it to prevent parents from helicoptering?</li>
<li> Profs may be forgiving of students excusing themselves for a few minutes. But why should the adminsitration make it necessary? And I KNOW plenty of teaching venues where computer terminals are NOT close by. You probably teach in a building that is full of such terminals, but believe me, this is not the norm everywhere. I invite you to come to Harvard and look for yourself. Fortunately, Harvard, however, does not have this silly registration system.</li>
<li>Students get shut out of classes they need even if they log on the minute they are allowed to. Happened to my S1 at least twice at his LAC.</li>
<li>One poster said the registration time happened during a midterm. Not easy to step out and get back to your midterm.</li>
</ol>
<p>Speaking for myself, I don't see this as much ado about very little. This is NOT a big deal to me. I read a post about a situation, and related that something similar has happened for one of my kids and how I think that it was OK for a parent to have to do the logistical secretarial task online as a proxy when the student has no such opportunity in a reasonable time frame so as not to lose out on getting into courses. It is just a discussion, but not a big deal or major major problem ;-). </p>
<p>Since you find this circumstance rather unusual, I can't speak for anyone else. I'll just explain the circumstance she was in when I registered last semester on her behalf with all her choices sent to me in an email ahead of time and even then, I had to have her call me on a five minute break to advise me if I could not get any of her choices (which did happen). My daughter attends NYU. She is enrolled in the Tisch School of the Performing Arts. Three days per week (and her registration appt. landed on one of these days), she attends her studio training at one of the drama studios affiliated with Tisch, but not ON the campus itself. It is about 15 city blocks from the main parts of the campus. (She has classes on other days as well but not at her studio). No students have computers IN class. These are participatory classes and I don't believe they even have desks or furnishings like in the classes where one might have a computer at their seat. The attendance policy is extremely strict and absences result in lowered grades. One could not get out of class to do registration. They need to be IN the class by the nature of the work. There are no computer stations at the studio for students to use. Are there any computers in this building (which isn't even a NYU building in the first place, or even near NYU)? I imagine that some administrative personnel have a computer in their office. I highly doubt a student could leave class and ask to use the staff's personal computer to register. I doubt most teachers even have an office in this building as it is a professional studio and many of them are not even employed by NYU itself. My kid was in studio classes far from any computers available to her from 9-6 followed by required crew assignment until 11 PM with no chance to be near a computer. That is a typical day for her. Today, she has rehearsal until midnight. These things are not close to dorms, libraries, or the like as well. The main option that I imagine others did, was to wait until late at night when they got to their computers and get any courses remaining at that time. </p>
<p>Susan</p>
<p>PS, Marite, I did not see your post but yes, these circumstances do create a need for helicoptering in. It isn't the greatest system and yes, there is a big difference as to which courses you get into if you wait past your allotted time slot. Coming up, for this semester, my D will have to wait an hour to log on as I will be out of the country. That beats last year, when she'd have had to wait 10 hours to have logged on past her allotted time.</p>
<p>marite, I dont see why you view the scheduling of the OP a lousy system all around and of course I have no idea what Harvard's system is. However most colleges with computer scheduling arrange it so that sr's get first crack at courses and frosh get last crack at them. I do not see how this type of systerm can be any fairer and it is far from being silly, whatever that means.</p>
<p>And I have to wonder about several posters to this thread, whose students go to top flight colleges, view the scheduling of courses as so difficult, particularly with respect to closed out classes. I did a cursory review of my son's college master schedule for this fall which has about 1500 undergrad class sections. There were only 75 sections which were closed out(0 seats) and of those only 16 could be considered single class sections in a student major/minor. 11 were clearly electives(frosh seminars, subjects with no corresponding degree program) and 48 which were multiple lab/recitation classes which had openings in other sections. At a glance I would estimate that fully 1/2 to 2/3 of class sections were highly under enrolled with fewer than 50% of the seats taken. In fariness, another 68 classes were over enrolled by 1-4 students, indicating that either double the number of classes were closed and a miniscule problem was twice as bad or that profs were quite willing to enroll the occasional student who was an unfortunate close out thus reducing the "problem" to almost nil.</p>
<p>Given these numbers and priority jr/sr scheduling, it seems highly unlikely that any student would have a problem with a two or three hour delay in scheduling. And if that rare instance occurred I doubt many instructors would have a problem in opening up a extra seat for that upperclass student.</p>
<p>If the problem is a severe one at a highly regarded and well funded private college/university as implied by some posters here, the complaint should be the inadequacy of class/course openings not the scheduling system. And if students do not want to enroll in that Calc2 8am recitation(which are almost always begging for students), well.........</p>
<p>Originaloog...there are too many differences between one college and another. Even between both my own kids' schools there are differences in the areas which you are describing. </p>
<p>For my D who has the online registration (that is the kid I have been referring to here as this is a non-issue for my kid at Brown)....it has nothing at all to do with the TIME of the class and what she "prefers". I'll just relate her situation and take it for what it is worth but it is not the case you are describing, that's all I can say. I believe she can take up to 18 credits per semester. Ten of these are a given for her and she is automatically enrolled in these classes for her BFA program. (Those ten credits are six courses plus private lessons, and should be seven courses plus private lessons, but she placed out of one required course and may not substitute anything for that). </p>
<p>Then she must take a course (four credits) in Theater Studies and one course (four credits) in the general categories of Humanties or Sciences (I won't get into the specific requirements but the gist is this registration issue was for the Humanities/Sciences and Theater Studies courses......she can pick WHICH courses in those areas). She gave me a list of five choices in order for each of these areas/requirements. In Sciences, I was able to get one (not all) of the five choices. In the Theater Studies area, I could not get any of her first five choices and had to pick from which classes had openings, which had dwindled quite a bit given her registration time and she is a sophomore. Had I not done the registration for her and she could not be at a computer until 10 hours later, she'd have had even less choices, as some of her friends who waited and did not have a parent who could be a proxy online do it while they were in their studio classes all day long. Even with my doing it at her allotted time, she had to go to about her sixth choice or lower for the Theater Studies required course slot. It had nothing to do with what time she wanted to awake. There were schedule conflicts involved (for instance, she goes to her studio three days per week 9-6 for six courses, not including fitting in the private required lesson on a different day). A lot of the courses she wanted that were offered on the two other days were filled up, take my word for it (or not).</p>
<p>This semester, we'll have to see what happens because I will be out of the country but her registration time this time still can't be met as she is in class but this time, she can get to a computer about an hour later and what will be will be. We shall see how far down her list of choices for these courses she will have to go and how many of her choices are FILLED by the time her turn comes up. What is the case at your kid's school doesn't mean that is how it is some place else. Even this situation at D2's school is NOT the situation at D1's school which doesn't use online registration, doesn't prioritize upperclassmen, and allows for a two week shopping period to finalize one's choices.</p>
<p>I'm not complaining but just sharing this experience as it related to the OP's in many ways.</p>
<p>You claimed that computer terminals are easy to get to anywhere on a campus so that students should be able to absent themselves from classes anytime for the briefest period. I answered that this is NOT the case. I am familiar with a variety of campuses and would not make that claim. </p>
<p>I also know from my S1 experience that a student, even an advanced student, can be shut out of needed classes even if the student logs in the very minute he is allowed to (and not 3-4 hours later, as you suggest). It happened twice with my S1, the last time in his senior year. this is particularly a problem at LACs where the range of alternative courses is not large.</p>
<ol>
<li>Why should profs have to tolerate students leaving their classes to register? The administration should devise a system that avoids this problem. It should also devise a system that does not require so many parents to get involved in their children's academic endeavor. It is not fair to students whose parents cannot do so and it invites intereference by parents in other areas of their college children's lives.</li>
</ol>
<p>There MUST be a better system. Care to think of one instead of defending the status quo?</p>
<p>It's no skin off my nose, by the way. S1 graduated; S2 is at a school that does not have this system.</p>
<p>"I'm not complaining but just sharing this experience as it related to the OP's in many ways."</p>
<p>Why aren't you complaining? Or at least why aren't the kids complaining? Not everyone has a parent at home who can do the registration for them. I think this system is nuts.</p>
<p>Mathmom, good point. I mostly meant that I was sharing an experience, that was all. That experience or circumstance or facts seem to be doubted by some. I also agreed with Marite as to the drawbacks of this sort of system. </p>
<p>As far as why aren't I complaining? Well, then, I WOULD be a helicopter parent, which I try not to be. I don't go calling up folks at my kids' colleges. When I registered online, I saw it as a secretarial task following my kid's wishes and acting as her proxy when she was unable to be near a computer to register. Calling up and getting involved, I have not yet done with either child in college. I did in K-12, but haven't in college. So far, I have only been through this online registration "cycle" once with D2. That is because her ENTIRE freshman schedule was preset, except the times of two classes, which I also took care of for her because she was away at overnight camp at the time and had no access to computers ever. D2's having a choice as to the actual classes has only happened once so far. The second time is in two weeks and she'll have to do what she can do as I can't be online in Italy at the time she needs. I haven't spoken to other students or parents at her school as to whether this is problematic to many or just what. I know for kids who go to studio from 9-6 several days per week, it has to be an issue. Luckily this semester, her registration appt. is not on a studio day and while she will miss it to attend class, she should be able to get to a computer within a reasonable time, and might lose out but not as much as she would have last semester given her appt. time had I not gotten online for her. I do agree with the drawbacks to this system! This is not an issue for D1.</p>
<p>Funny that this should come up - I just went through the first round of registration today. We do it online and can sign up for up to 8 hours the first week; 16 hours the next. Seniors go first, then juniors, etc, with randomly assigned times within your class.</p>
<p>Although the times can conflict with classes, profs usually don't care if you bring your laptop to register. It takes a minute at most, if you have all the course codes handy. Even if they normally don't like you to have laptops in lecture, they won't mind for registration.</p>
<p>Each college has its own system. My S's had a system that allowed students to log in at specific times according to their last names with (supposedly) some factoring of their class status. As I said, on several occasions, classes my S wanted were filled up by the time he could log on, so the 8 hours, etc... was absolutely no help.</p>
<p>As I said, each school is different. My daughter was not in lecture style classes and there is no way a laptop could be brought into the participatory classes she had all day long. There also was likely no wireless in that building which is not a university owned building. As well, even when I did it myself for her, it took way longer than "a minute" because I could not get choices 1-5 (filled up) and it meant more research, juggling conflicts with what I could get, even a call to the registrar as to how to handle it technically. It surely was not something someone would be doing IN class, and definitely not in the classes she is in on that day which involve singing, acting, dancing, etc. By the way, it was more involved than a minute even with all the course codes and options as it involved making more and more choices and more things were closed out which then meant new choices conflicted with other courses signed up for, etc.</p>
<p>An aside- the "good old days". Must have been tough to stand outside in Berkeley. In Madison, Wis. January registration was pick up materials to register at or after the assigned time at one end of campus, go to each dept offering the desired class, all over campus, then go to the opposite end of campus to turn in materials- with any luck you didn't have to revisit many depts to change a course or run out of time and have to continue the next day; all this in the snow and cold on a large, hilly campus. The only advantage over a computer was that you could talk a TA at the registration table into adding your name to the class list when it was full but you needed that section (eg honors). Somehow I would rather use a computer and keep checking to see if a class I wanted opened up...</p>
<p>I wasn't trying to criticize the way it's done anywhere else, by any means...just saying that's how we do it here. :) </p>
<p>Everything works out fine in the end although you can't always get the classes you want, and there's not usually too much left to choose from by the second round...I always end up with a bad time, so I barely squeak in to the classes I need (for instance, I have to take an 8 am bio class next semester instead of the one I wanted because that's all that was left). I'd checked out how many spots were open earlier in the day - before class - and I saw what had spots left and wrote down the course codes. Then when my window opened up I was ready to go...typed them in and was done. I understand it could be more difficult if a class was almost full, etc. (like by the second round) but I tend to be pretty prepared, writing down all the possible permutations and course codes of all the different sections of a course I can take if my initial choices are full. I usually don't get too stressed about the process.</p>
<p>I agree that it's pretty unfair to not take some measures to help out the kids if they're stuck in class all day without some kind of access to a computer. That stinks. But we're pretty wired here, so I just kind of take wireless accessibility for granted around campus.</p>
<p>Just an update- My D's professor allowed her to take her quiz with the class before hers, freeing her up for her registration time. She was able to get all but one of her top choices so all worked out...
She is actually surprising me a little with how well she is organizing herself w/o me. LOL... I am very pleasantly surprised and very pleased : )</p>
<p>My school does registration starting on a certain day for each seniors, juniors, etc. The registration starts at midnight of the day, but really 10pm here since the server is on the east coast...so everyone in my class registers at the same time and it takes at least 5 minutes to load. I've only had problems getting a class once. I guess this works better for a small school though--it's bad enough with hundreds registering at one time, so thousands would be awful.</p>