<p>As a former department chair, I can say that constructive complaints are sometimes useful to lower-level administrators in garnering resources from the central administration. But your daughter should be realistic about this and, as others have suggested, proceed in a problem-solving mode.</p>
<p>Assuming the problem can’t be solved through simple persistence with the faculty member who is offering the course (as noted above, some classes have definite space restrictions), then the most appropriate first step is for your daughter to go see her academic advisor. The advisor may be able to intervene with an instructor if s/he understands the constraints or special needs the student may have. What “special needs”? At large universities, athletes may need to take courses only on certain days. At colleges of all sizes, sometimes students in a complicated joint major have special priority needs. As a teacher, I appreciate hearing from an advisor when a student has a need that isn’t obvious but adds some urgency to the request for an override into a “closed” course – including, in some cases, health or other personal issues.</p>
<p>If your daughter doesn’t get fairly immediate satisfaction, the advisor may have some workarounds and advice for a plan B, including knowing when a given class is likely to be offered next or helping to find good alternative courses.</p>
<p>In short, stay at the operational level for short-term solutions: the instructor, the advisor. For longer-term solutions, or to complain if the advisor is not helpful, then step up the ladder to the chair of the department in which the advisor operates or the student has a major or intended major.</p>
<p>But go to a “dean”? I’m with Mini: Is there an emergency of some kind? Well then, call the campus police or the fire department.</p>
<p>Well, I am still advising against the majority opinion on this thread.</p>
<p>mousegray, if your daughter is at an LAC, please ignore these comments; the other posters probably know better than I.</p>
<p>However, for anyone with a student at a large public university: If your son or daughter is closed out of a course that is needed for the major, and it’s not a singular occurrence (one student, one time, one course), then the parent should contact the President of the university. The failure of the institution to offer a sufficient number of sections, in courses that are needed for the majors, is a fault in budget allocation–which is ultimately controlled at the highest administrative level.</p>
<p>I agree that the student should be personally responsible for working out the best schedule in the circumstances. And I am all for letting students solve their own problems (thus not bringing down the wrath of the Helicopter Parent Patrol).</p>
<p>However, from my perspective as a former department chair, I can say that in a large public university like mine, a complaint about course close-outs from a parent will get significantly more attention than the same complaint from a student. (You can argue that this should not be so. I’m willing to believe that it is not so at LAC’s.) </p>
<p>I consulted with a fairly high-level administrator at my institution about this problem, posed as a hypothetical, and got the answer that the parent should complain to the President. </p>
<p>Large, public universities in other regions might operate differently. But I can assure you that the faculty in the department that is being short-changed on financial resources, who cannot meet student demand, would all be grateful to a parent who brought this situation to the attention of the President.</p>
<p>Or, if you think there might be a budget allocation issue at the departmental level, try calling the Department Chairman. That person may be able to do something, if the Department has the funds. </p>
<p>But the odds are, the Department would already have opened new sections, if they had the ability to do it. I know that we have been watching enrollment data for all of our courses, on a continuing basis, since mid-Spring. (Freshman course data come on line each week of orientation, and we can predict the demand pretty accurately after the first few orientation sessions, although we do keep updating; upperclass enrollment is already concluded.) In the likely scenario that the Chairman cannot solve the problem, he/she could at least tell you what office you should contact, the way your D’s school operates.</p>
<p>Now would be a good time to try it out with talking to the professor about getting into the class and working with her adviser to figure out an alternate plan.</p>
<p>I don’t think I would ever call my son’s college unless being unable to get into certain classes was a threat to his ability to complete in four years…only then would I be rattling cages. I do think their is some degree of implicit connection to the parents as we do pay the bills and having to extend a college plan because of an inability of the college to deliver the goods is a parent problem. I would expect that my child had explored every avenue with the advisor, the profs, etc. before I would ever intervene.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that at LACs students do not usually declare a major until second semester of sophomore year so getting into a class “in her major” might be more of a theoretical than a real issue for an underclassperson. Being able to opt in to an upper-level course thanks to AP credit, for example, is another thing, but even then it is unlikely to be more than a 200, and would routinely be open to sophs if not first-years.</p>
<p>It is frustrating to be closed out of a class, and I sympathize with the OP and her daughter. However, the schools I’m familiar with have a pretty standardized sign up and class wait list policies, as well as add-drop days when people often can get in because others leave. Going to the first day of class is a good idea for that reason. The issue at a small school, however, really is class size–that is, a professor might expand the class by one or two but beyond that a larger class will dilute the experience for which a student chose an LAC in the first place. And in the case of some labs, the equipment just may not be there even if the desire to open up to more students is.</p>
<p>I would certainly not call the school though, whether the dean or the advisor. As others have said, health or safety are legitimate reasons to call. Class size and the budgetary pressures that preclude adding more classses are not things that can effectively be addressed this way.</p>
<p>I am adding my voice to those who say absolutley do NOT call - only call for health and safety reasons as mattmom says.^ At the same time let me add my sympathy - it is extremely frustrating when your child does not get in to classes they want. Both of my kids now have gotten the ‘bad’ first semester schedule and/or teachers which made me a little steamed up at first. But the real lesson here is that they learn to deal with these issues themselves - either by acceptance or finding a way to change the current situation or applying knowledge to the future.</p>
<p>My kids would usually not engage me unless they couldn’t handle situation by themselves. If I have to step in, it’s not always pretty, so they really do think twice before they get me involved. I have butt in when I didn’t like the way D1 was been treated by her male history teacher in class. I did chew out her physics teacher in HS for refusing to write rec letters for her class because a few kids got caught stealing a test (he was disappointed in the whole class).</p>
<p>There have only been 2 occassions in college when D1 engaged me to help. I have to say, in both occassions when an administrator or a professors wouldn’t give D1 time of the day, both of them spoke with me and had issues resolved.</p>
<p>In my own experience as a college student and in D1’s case, there has never been a problem of not be able to take required classes for a major. D1 has been shut out initially, but could generally get in after add/drop or by speaking with the professor. Their schools (Hotel, AEM) would usually give kids in the school priority for classes. D1 has had problem getting into AEM finance courses, but it’s only because they reserve those classes for AEM students. </p>
<p>As a paying customer, even though I am not the student, I would be upset if I couldn’t get the goods promised to me. I would call if all else failed. If I couldn’t resolve it then my kid would transfer (no point in throwing good money away). I wouldn’t want to waste my energy or my kid’s energy in fighting the city hall. She should be studying.</p>
<p>Speaking with all of the pent-up frustration of a past Department Chair, I still say: If a student is closed out of more than 1 class, or 1 class more than 1 time (and if the class is in the normal progression toward the degree), the parent should contact a university administrator. Because of university budget pressures, I had to really scramble to cover all the classes the students wanted. I took steps such as hiring back emeritus faculty at an absolute pittance to cover classes. (One has now moved out of the state–to be closer to his children, I’m sure, but it does also prevent his being called back.) We hired one recent Ph.D. graduate who had some of the top teaching ratings to serve as a temporary instructor. We had one or two faculty carrying three times the normal teaching load. </p>
<p>This year, things are worse. Fortunately, I am not responsible for solving the problem anymore. However, this year we terminated 6 staff positions in the department, and we have reduced the teaching assistant count for the fall semester from 115 to 85. This inevitably impacts our ability to offer lab sections. This is not the kind of problem that any student could resolve by taking a mature, determined attitude.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the Dean is unconcerned about this issue, because he believes that the students will simply take other courses, where there is space, so it’s revenue neutral to the university. In a subject with a large number of pre-requisite courses, this approach will delay students’ graduations, without a doubt.</p>
<p>I had a similar situation with one of my kids (at an LAC). Closed out of intro chem freshman year was ok - she’d wait it out. But sophomore year she was closed out again (not for lack of getting up and getting in line at 8am - course selection is done online and she was on her computer at midnight, or whatever time it opened). Had she not been able to take this course as a sophomore, she would not have been able to take upper level courses in her major and graduate in 4 years. She tried talking to the professor, her advisor, etc with no success. I emailed the president of the college (not to complain, but simply to advise him of the situation and of my disappointment) . He immediately replied and apologized that this was happening and forwarded my email to the Provost who also replied and said he would look into the situation immediately. Guess what? When they saw how many students wanted chem and were shut out, they opened two new sections of the course! I can’t say this would happen in every school, but if I hadn’t intervened, D would not have graduated on time.</p>
<p>My kids attend a HS that really pushes AP classes. Having had one graduate, I have such mixed feelings about them. </p>
<p>It is so true that just because a student may be able to take an upper level class due to AP credits, that does not mean at all that any of those classes will be open by the time he can register.</p>
<p>Our son had a year of dual-enrollment credits and almost all of them transferred in so he was ahead of other students in the queue for course signup as his university goes by the number of credits that you have for enrollment priority.</p>
<p>In his program, GEDs are interspersed with major courses so getting closed out of a course isn’t an issue as he can just take something else that’s required.</p>
<p>Here’s my parental interference. Son was taking math and science honors sequences. The timetable came out with both third courses at the same time- impossible therefore to continue both. And yes, nosy mom was checking to see it, knowing son would not tell her anything. Knowing my son’s procrastination and timing was important I emailed chairmen at the honors, math and involved science depts with the problem. The flunky at honors was clueless- said there were 2 sections of one of the courses (both sections met at the same time, duh). One of the others corrected the problem before the third had a chance (within a day or so) to investigate. Both professors were very pleasant in their emails. I felt good about pointing out this problem that affected more than my child and before it was a hassle for busy freshmen to try to correct. I was pleasantly surprised at how easily the problem was solved at the mega U, I was prepared to carry it up the ranks and was glad I shared the problem with all three involved parties at once instead of relying on the honors people to handle it with the departments. I was an honors grad of that U eons ago and knew how things work, otherwise I would have informed my son and deferred to him. The next semester son had a course time conflict which he resolved himself after discussion with his prof (prerequisites can sometimes be ignored to accomodate student needs).</p>
<p>The above is entirely different than being closed out of a course due to enrollment numbers. I remember the old days when I talked my way into needed full sections of my major- computers can’t make the exceptions people could in the old days. Now advisors tell students how to get into a full class once classes have begun- students may register months in advance but even faculty can’t make the computer change its rules.</p>
<p>I have a comment not necessarily relevant to the OP but I feel it is worth saying in the context of more recent posts: “The flunky at honors” may have been clueless but may also have been a graduate student pressed into service, an undergraduate, or a hardworking full-timer who just didn’t have the right anwer or full information. In any case it would be nice to think that honors graduates of great universities would not sound arrogant and complacent when referring to people who work at that university. Also helpful to remember that the “flunky” on the other end of someone’s phone line may be your own son or daughter some day, or you yourself in some other setting, or even (let’s be a bit cynical but also realistic here) someone you would like to leave a good impression with, because you just never know to whom he or she has access.</p>
<p>^^^mattmom, I couldn’t agree more, in fact, I told my daughter to make sure to be polite and friendly to assistants, secretaries and all administrative staff. Besides the fact that there is probably nothing more offensive to staff than an arrogant, entitled college student, and I would hope that she’s made of better stuff, those people often hold the key to the kingdom.</p>
<p>QuantMech, thanks for your input and for your research! And to everyone else. I’ve passed all this on to my D. </p>
<p>She seems to be making the best of the situation and seems open to the classes she did get into (all second choices I believe). As it turns out, it’s not a situation where missing the first choice classes poses a risk of not graduating on time. Also, her major is a creative one and is not subject to the same sort of sequencing as other more quantitative fields, so there is some leeway. At this point, I think I will hold my tongue and watch from the sidelines. If it happens again though, all bets are off.</p>
<p>My D is at a small LAC and I’m beginning to see some real disadvantages to such a small school. Hers is not the most organized of institutions, which has its good and bad points. Good in that there seems to be a relaxed approach to student life, bad in that simple tasks (like getting her stuff out of storage after the summer – there seems to be no access and no one with a key!) become frustrating. I suggest to anyone looking at small schools — find out from the current students what the registration process is really like. Specific depts, programs, classes, etc may sound great but if accessibility is a real issue, they may not be a good enough reason to pick a college.</p>
<p>Class scheduling issues are always annoying and occur regardless of what school one attends. However, your child is now an adult and she needs to deal with such situations herself. Nothing wrong with discussing it and seeking advice on who to talk to and what to do, but she needs to handle the ‘doing’ herself. Parents calling up the school for anything other than emergency situations is a bit odd.</p>
<p>I think that one of the strengths of small LAC’s and honors programs is that they offer limited-enrollment seminars taught in one section by a professor. The flipside of this is that only a small number of students can take a given seminar course at a time. If my kid needed intro to bio-chem for his major and not getting it would impede his ability to progress through the university in four years, I might be tempted to make the call about the problematic situation. But for a small, closed elective in his major, we just urged him to come up with a game plan and follow through. In the end, he let the prof know how much he wanted the course and why, followed the prof’s recommendations on how to have the best chance to get into the then-closed course, was persistent, and showed up for the first few classes until an opening appeared. (At which point, he kept showing up, of course!)</p>
<p>EEEK! As a science major eons ago, I would have found this NOT OK! To have been closed out of it again in the sophomore year would have been time to go ballistic! </p>
<p>Freshmen chemistry is a pre-req for almost everything in the biology and chemistry departments–any school that grants any type of biology degree should always have enough freshman chemistry course spaces. Otherwise, they are not serious about science.</p>
<p>rocketman08 - I don’t think that’s really the case. My daughter has never complained about not able to get into a class. It is also the case with her friends at her school. The problem they have is there are too many interesting classes they want to take and not have enough time. My daughter is going to graduate with 2 majors and a minor from her school. She didn’t go in with a lot of APs either. She has friends at a lot of other schools and it is not a major concern for most of them (all of them are on schedule to graduate in 4 years in their respective majors). No, I don’t think a well run school should have scheduling problem. If they do, it should be a huge red flag.</p>