Waitlisting flaws to be corrected
The new school year brought several changes to USU’s policies and procedures, one of which is the new waitlisting feature available to students who are unable to sign into classes.
The new feature allows students to join a waitlist for classes that have reached their maximum occupancy. If someone drops the class, the first student on the list receives an email stating that they have 24 hours to add the class. Students are dropped from the waitlist if they do not add the class in the allotted time, and will have to rejoin the waitlist and wait until it is their turn again.
“We were sure to give professors a choice if they wanted to utilize this feature or not. We defaulted all classes to it unless the professor specified otherwise,” Registrar John Mortensen said.
According to Mortensen, most of the complaints that students have had with the waitlist have been that they did not add their desired class in the allotted time.
“Professors’ main complaint is that they could not add a student to a class if they weren’t on the top of the wait list,” Mortensen said.
Professors that decide to go with the waitlist option for their class aren’t allowed to add students on their own because it can cause problems for students trying to get into the class who are on the waitlist.
An unexpected benefit of the waitlist is that departments can now see which classes are in the highest demand and how many students are on the wait list. This has allowed for more sections to be opened to meet the demand, Mortensen said.
“It was really convenient to get the email telling me I could sign up for the class, and it was nice to see exactly how much time I had to add the class,” said sophomore Alicia Card.
Mortensen said that during the summer, 1100 students were waitlisted and approximately 1000 of the students made it into the class they needed. He said the return rate was higher than he expected.
According to Mortensen, the biggest problem with the waitlist is that classes which require labs can’t be set up with a waitlist, because the labs have to correspond with the classes. It’s something they hope to be able to remedy before winter semester.
How does USU’s waitlist program compare with other universities around the state? According to Utah Valley University’s Registrar’s Office, UVU uses Banner, so the waitlist system is exactly the same as USU’s.
Brigham Young University’s program works a lot like USU’s old one. The Registrar’s Office at BYU said that each professor is supplied with an add code, so if they decide to admit more students to the class they can just give the students the code.
The idea for the waitlist at USU was brought about because Banner had the capability, so university officials decided to try the feature. There’s been nothing but positive feedback, Mortensen said.
The waitlist feature will be turned off this Friday, after that time all students will require the professor’s signature to get into a class.
– mikayla.rich@aggiemail.usu.edu