University of Virginia Library

Spring Registration

This week College students will once again
pick and choose among the myriad courses
offered by the various academic departments
to fashion a schedule for the spring semester.
As First-year students will soon learn, if they
did not discover it during the September
registration, the Office of the Registrar works
in strange ways. For instance, if a student
signs up for Spanish 2, he is liable to find
himself registered for Mathematics 297
instead. It seems that the computers or at
least the people who are programming them,
are far from perfection so we wish to offer a
few reminders to the soon to be frustrated
student.

In order to be preenrolled for any courses
only sign up for those that you are really
planning to take. In other words do not
pre-register for 25 hours hoping that you will
receive 15. The computer may be angered or
confused and not register you at all. It is
advisable to contact professors of those
courses in which you are finally enrolled to
insure a place in the course. If you find
yourself in the all too frequent predicament
of not being preregistered in all of your
selections or not in a required course for
graduate school, rely on the add-drop card. A
trip to the professor's office to be entered
before the mad rush begins at the beginning
of the semester will help your chances.

Beware of the information that is supplied
along with your schedule card by the
Registrar. There have been many mistakes in
the listings of courses in the main spring
course book. After deciding what courses in
which to pre-enroll, the student should
contact the department or professor of each
to insure that the course is listed correctly.

Above all, when trying to register for
courses, do not give up in the face of
bureaucratic red-tape and incompetence:
ingenuity will equal entrance into courses.