Enrollment and the Waiting List

The class is full. There are many people on the waiting list. You might be wondering what is going on…

update 12/30/21: There are still 100 people on the waiting list. Many have really good reasons why they need the class. CS Enrollment services (enrollment@cs.wisc.edu) is prioritizing who gets into the class. Please contact them if you feel you should be prioritized.

At first, I doubted that 175 people would want to take the class online.

Now, the class filled to 200 (we added 25 seats), and 100 people are on the wait list (it is capped). I have no idea how many people want to be on the waiting list - it is limited to 100.

When spaces open up, people from the wait list are invited to enroll. The seats don’t fill instantly when someone drops. The CS enrollment staff has to (manually) invite someone from the waiting list, and then that student has to accept the invitation to claim the seat. Once the student accepts the invitation, a new space opens up on the waiting list. So it might appear there are a few spaces available - but it is because people from the waiting list have been offered those seats (and haven’t accepted yet, they get 24 or 48 hours to respond).

CS Enrollment services manages the waiting list. I believe they invite people once per day (so if people drop, they invite new people from the waiting list within a day). I do not know how they prioritize students on the waiting list.

I have no idea how things will end up. This semester is quite unpredictable. In addition to record enrollments and the experiment of 559 online, there is also a problem that other classes have been cancelled.

I am trying to be careful not to make any promises. I suspect many students will drop, but prior experience may not apply to this semester.

I am also not sure about how much we can grow the class. Under normal circumstances, we are limited by room size. This semester, we are limited by staffing and technology limits.

What can you do: If you want to take this class, put yourself on the waiting list. If the waiting list is full, check back closer to the beginning of classes.

Please do not ask me (the Professor) to prioritize you on the waiting list. The waiting list is managed by the CS Enrollment staff. This is important so we can allocate the available “seats” in a fair and consistent manner. If you have questions, please contact them.