Before Tisch was buzzing with the energy of finals, students rushed to the library for a different reason - to log on to SIS and register for spring classes.
On Nov. 15, sophomore Jamie Kraut sat anxiously in the library waiting for her registration time to come. "There were so many classes that looked incredibly interesting," she said. "But I was concerned that with upperclassmen priority, most of them would already be closed by the time I got to register."
Kraut's concerns were confirmed when she was closed out of her three top course choices, U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East, European Contemporary Politics and Force, Strategy and Arms Control.
Frustrating experiences with registration are common for international relations majors like Kraut. According to Registrar and Student Services Manager JoAnn Smith, the University has experienced a rise in the number of political science and international relations majors in recent years. With increased interest in these departments, many of the courses they offer reach enrollment capacity early in the registration period.
While departments like political science and international relations attempt to meet increased demand by adding additional sections to popular courses, Smith said that many departments are limited in their ability to expand.
"If you have to add three more sections, you need three more faculty members to be able to teach that course," she said.
Smith cited limited classroom space as a further restriction on enrollment. "Space on campus is another huge limitation," she said. "We don't have the luxury of saying, 'Go ahead, bump up your enrollment; we're going to find another room for you.'"
According to Director of the Entrepreneurial Leadership (ELS) Program Pamela Goldberg, ELS 101 was filled to capacity by the end of the first day of registration. A second section was added, which was filled to capacity only two days later - before many students were even cleared to register.
Goldberg has been asked to add additional sections of other ELS classes, but the program does not currently have the resources to do so. "We are limited by both funding and by the number of qualified adjunct faculty," she said.
Unlike most other departments in both the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering, the ELS Program is not funded by the University.
"Therefore, we need to fundraise for everything that we have in the program and also for everything that we add," Goldberg said. "We are fairly entrepreneurial in that we do a great deal with little funding, but we do not want to compromise the quality just to address demand for the courses."
American Studies Lecturer John Hodgman teaches the entrepreneurship courses ELS 101 and American Entrepreneurship. This semester alone, he has received inquiries about enrollment from 11 students who were not able to enroll in the classes.
"My advice to them has been that they should come to the first class on Jan. 19," Hodgman said. "Usually I find that some students who had registered change their minds and drop the course, so I may have some vacancies."
The waitlist feature is utilized by many students who are closed out of classes that they wish to take. However, the waitlist feature is often misused or not used at all, according to Smith.
"The culture has been at Tufts not to deal with the waitlist," she said. "We want that to change."
Often, students who are unable to get into classes don't bother to register during their assigned registration time, and then wait and add/drop all of their courses on the first day of the semester.
As it works now, registration opens in mid-November for students to register for spring classes. It then closes again, so that students are unable to access SIS registration until a few weeks later, when registration is temporarily re-opened for students to make changes to their schedule.
When this second period of registration ends, online registration closes permanently and students can only make further changes to their spring schedule by adding or dropping classes using paper add/drop forms.
Smith recognizes the flaws of this system: "If the system is shut down and you're not able to drop courses, no one is coming off the waitlist, so what is the point?"
Extending online registration to reopen over winter break and stay open until the deadline for dropping classes would facilitate the proper use of the waitlist, according to Smith.
"Students wouldn't have to wait until the first day of classes to drop, and if there were classes that were still open, they would be able to register online for them," Smith said. "We are moving towards actually having that waitlist be meaningful."
Extending online registration in this manner would involve making add/drop automated, rather than having students add and drop classes on paper, as is the case now.
With extended online registration and automated add/drop, professors would be better prepared to deal with over-demand for courses because they'd have the ability to more accurately track registration patterns.
"Many undergraduates sign up for more courses than they want to take," said Frances Chew, director of American Studies and a professor of biology. "The enrollment of all classes drops by 20 to 25 percent, having only to do with that alone."
In Chew's experience, if professors add more sections to accommodate the initial demand for courses, they often end up with half-full sections at the start of the semester.
Smith believes that for students of all years, registration issues are often solved once the semester begins and add/drop takes place. "Once add/drop comes along, ultimately everyone does get into what they need," she said.
Still, some students are weary.
"Of course I will show up to the first class and attempt to be added, but this always proves to be a long and sometimes fruitless process," said sophomore Dara Kanowitz, who fears she will be forced to signed up for classes that she has little interest in.
"Why pay all this money for college to be prevented from pursuing my interests?" she said.
