@ucbalumnus - Current students and parents seem to have only great things to say about the school, so maybe our initial impression of course registration is warped. After all, everyone seems happy.
Registration is not first come, first serve. Students pre-register for the courses they want, and then, after everyone has pre-registered, professors get to choose who stays in the class. Sometimes there are guidelines (like “senior history majors preferred”), but once past those, the professors just pick. This is what the registrar’s office said, when asked.
S was dropped from two out of his four classes so far. One had a preference for freshmen, so I have absolutely no idea why he was dropped and other freshmen allowed to take the class. (Based on what? The professor didn’t like his name?)
Once dropped, one has to pick among the classes that still have openings, and a lot of classes already are closed. S might end up not taking a course in his intended major this semester, because most of the remaining options, which do not have times that conflict with the two classes he still has, or prerequisites, or bad teacher reviews, do not interest him. But some other open classes in other subjects sound very interesting, so it still will be a great semester.
And absolutely all of the classes under consideration are small, discussion-oriented classes.
I guess the flip side of small classes is that they are kept small by limiting enrollment!
Prospective students can get a peek at the situation by looking under Course Catalog on the website right now. One can see which classes are closed and which are still open. One can see that there are a lot of classes still open, and that there are enough that one never would have any problem meeting broad distribution requirements across the four years. It is just a matter of sometimes being locked out of specifiic courses you like, and then maybe not always finding a remaining one you want to take in a particular subject.
I do not know how Vanderbilt, or other larger universities, compare. Maybe freshmen end up with limited choices at that type of school as well. But maybe there are more class sections. But there probably are more large lectures than at Williams, I would guess.
I still think Williams is the best college on the planet! But it is not perfect.