All the stages of class enrollment at UVA

The careful planning

You’ve scoured Lou’s List and Course Forum and the formidable SIS. You’ve mapped out the classes you need and want and created a decent-looking prospective schedule for next semester. Through some careful, meticulous shuffling, things are looking good. You’re not too overbooked on any given day and you’ve managed to avoid including any 8 AM discussions. Maybe you’ve even dodged Friday class! You’re feeling confident and maybe even excited to get another 15 credits under your belt.

The day of

It’s your enrollment day! You might have skipped a class that conflicted with your assigned time or posted up somewhere oddly secluded to ensure a solid wifi connection. Either way, you’ve made the necessary preparations to ensure a smooth and successful enrollment. You’re ready to take on the nightmarish inner-workings of SIS. You’ve got a Plan B and a Plan C if your classes fill up. It’s go time.

Actually enrolling (or at least trying to)

You’re off to the races, rapidly checking those little blue boxes next to the mnemonics of your coveted classes. Could it be? It’s going to work out perfectly? Now just click ‘Enroll’ and…

Unless you’ve been absolutely blessed by some higher being, this is where things tend to go south.

The let down

It could have been the one discussion section, the one you had to take at 7 PM on Wednesday in order for the rest of your schedule to work. Maybe you’ve had your heart set on finally taking Dracula with Stepanic. Or maybe it’s the last requirement of your major that you NEED TO TAKE TO GRADUATE. There’s always that one class (or two, or three) that’s spitefully already full, taunting you with that yellow triangle (or the dreaded ‘Class Closed’ blue square).

The panic

Suddenly, your ideal schedule is reduced to a few straggling classes from Plan B/Plan C. Nothing seems to be going right. As classes begin to fill up, the terror sets in. You’re left frantically scrolling through SIS, trying to find something, anything, that might be a decent replacement for the unattainable classes. You’re trying to sort out timing conflicts and figure out what the hell the difference between ‘edit’ and ‘swap’ is. It seems like most every class you needed or wanted is either full or at a seriously inconvenient time.

Note: around this time in the process, SIS sometimes has the tendency to crash. Like, curtains. Caput. Frozen screen, browser not responding despite absolutely smashing the refresh button. The whole nine yards.

The aftermath

Things probably didn’t go exactly as planned. You might be stuck with that Friday 8 AM discussion and a few Course Action forms are definitely in your future. Remember that hypothetical schedule you made of all the perfect classes at the perfect times? Whatever you’ve got going on in SIS probably doesn’t look much like that right now.

Try not to stress too much. A lot can shift around in a few months and the add/drop period is a beautiful thing. Regardless, enrollment can be a stressful and discouraging event. May the odds be ever in your favor.