Significant changes have been made to the waitlist system for Fall 2018, according to the Office of the Registrar.
Starting with Fall 2018 registration, students will no longer be allowed to hold spots on waitlists for more than 16 units on Plan A Student Schedule, the scheduling site on students’ Cal Poly Portal. According to an official memorandum sent out by University Registrar Cem Sunata, the waitlist will run once a day until the day before the first day of instruction. The waitlist process will be run twice a day for the first four days of the add/drop period and place students in open seats.
Business administration junior Remi Crosetti said the new system will be an improvement.
“I think it’s a good idea because it will help narrow it down to the students that actually need those classes instead of having people waitlist every class in the hopes of getting one,” Crosetti said.
Along with the limit of 16 waitlisted units for each student, once the quarter begins, students will be able to automatically enroll in a class without a permission number if there are open seats within the first four days of the add/drop period. Once a student is moved off the waitlist to fill an open seat, they will receive an email to notify them of their enrollment, according to the official memorandum.
As stated in the official email, if a class is full, enrollment will only occur through the waitlist and not via permission numbers. It also said during the last four days of the add/drop period, permission numbers are required to enroll in courses.
In the memorandum, Sunata also wrote that if faculty members want to accept more students than allowed for enrollment, a new process will be followed. According to Sunata, faculty will need to contact their department scheduler to get permission to increase their enrollment capacity, which cannot exceed the capacity of the classroom.
“This way, the waitlist process would notice the added seats to the enrollment capacity and place the students into the class through their ranking in the waitlist in an equitable manner,” Sunata wrote.
Mathematics junior Gladys Gonzalez said the community college she attended before Cal Poly did not use permission numbers and she was well adjusted to that system. Gonzalez said when she arrived at Cal Poly, getting into packed classes was a new experience for her.
“At my old community college in Merced County, that’s the way that it used to be,” Gonzalez said. “If you were number one or two on the waitlist and somebody else dropped the course, you were just automatically enrolled in the class.”
She also said a new system without permission numbers would be more efficient for students.
“I feel like this is a much faster process than getting the permission number and doing the thing on PolyLearn. I think it’s a good thing. I think it will make everything easier,” Gonzalez said.
Computer science junior Logan Thatcher said it seems like the new process will give all students equal opportunity when registering for classes.
“With the old system, it seemed like the waitlist didn’t mean much, and now it feels like it will mean something. It used to feel like it was somewhat up to the professors to pick students out for their class, and I feel like this system is much more fair,” Thatcher said.