Have you said or thought that this week? If so, you’re probably not alone. Every registration period one section or one course seems to fill up much faster than others. When that happens, there are a few things that we do to help students. First, when all the seats in the course are full, we ALWAYS encourage students to add to the waitlist. This helps us get a true sense of how many students want to take the course and it gives us a case for trying to add another section or increasing the enrollment limit in the current section.

Naturally, there are many logistical elements that go into this process that impact our ultimate success in being able to offer more seats of a certain course. First, we need a place to teach it – so we consult with the appropriate people to find a room that will work for the class. If we decide to just increase the size of the current section, we need to be sure the room assigned can handle it. We also need someone to teach and additional section of the course if we go that route – so we look through the ranks of full time instructors, adjuncts and others to find a qualified person. Then, we go through the process of getting the course posted on Wiser and thus available for student enrollment. This can whole process can be quite lengthy. When we’ve been able to confirm additional seats, we then send an email (through Wiser, to your UMB account) to all enrolled and waitlisted students to notify them of the new seats. When a new section is made available, anyone can swap into or add the new section. When additional seats are added to the existing section, students are moved off the waitlist in order. There is no really way to know how long all of this will take, so we appreciate patience with the process.

Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, there are times when we cannot offer additional seats in a given term for a variety of reasons. When this happens, we look to add another section for the following term. You should also note that we only consider adding extra seats when an entire course is full – so if your first choice for MGT 330 is full, for example, but there are seats in other sections of the course, you should try to take one of those instead. We encourage students who are having scheduling difficulty to see an advisor as we can talk with individual students about specific options for staying on track for graduation and completing certain requirements.

If you are a College of Management student and cannot add into a CM class on Wiser that you think you should be able to add to, you now have an online tool to help. Prior to this semester, you would have to come into the CM Undergraduate Program Office to complete a registration card, which would allow advisors to look into the situation, and manually add you the course, if possible. But now, you can complete the online form, and we can look into it without you needing to make a special trip in to see us.

Please bear in mind that when you have a hold, are missing pre-requisites, have a time conflict with another course, or are already registered for the maximum allowable credits for the semester, completing this form will still not allow us to add you to the course.

This form is for College of Management courses and College of Management students, ONLY!

This form, and others that might be useful to you can be found under the Student Resources link on the CM website.

November 10 is the last day for course withdraw (this means you are dropping at least one course while also staying enrolled in at least one course this semester). Before you decide to take a W in a course, there are a few things to consider and steps to take.

– Talk with your instructor: while you might have been keeping track of grades and the weight each one has in your course grade, it is always a good idea to confirm with the instructor that your grade expectations are the same as his or hers. This is especially helpful if part of your grade consists of class participation or unreturned assignments that you don’t have enough information about yourself to calculate into your course grade. Once you have idea from the instructor directly where you stand, you will be well informed to make a decision about withdrawing from that course.
– Talk with you advisor: there could be longer term effects on your graduation plan if you withdraw from certain courses. You should check with an advisor to see what impact, if any, a W would have now.
– Talk with International Students and Scholars Services if you are at UMass Boston on a student visa, as there could be serious ramifications if you drop below full time status at any point in the semester. Full time is considered 12 or more credits.
– Check your financial aid: Federal guidelines require that students not only have at least a 2.0 cumulative GPA, but also that 2/3 of your course work is successfully completed. A W, INC, or F is not considered satisfactory completion. If you drop below either of these standards, you can lose your financial aid. So, dropping one course while you are enrolled in just 2 your first semester, for example, would be harmful, dropping one course while enrolled in 5 courses in your first semester would keep you in good standing as far as this completion rate goes. Remember, you are also financially responsible for any course you withdraw from at this point.

Dropping a course is an important decision, and one you are encouraged to think about thoroughly. The November 10 deadline is also very strict – so gather all the information you’ll need to make this decision now, so that you can take action, if necessary, in time.