What ROSI looks like in my head. "WAITLIST"
For all the first years (and anyone who suffers from ROSIphobia), here are some course selection tips and tricks I’ve learned throughout my years at U of T. Hopefully they’ll help you beat ROSI at her own game:
1. First and foremost, make your schedule a week prior to your enrollment date to ensure that there are no conflicts. Make a list of courses you want beforehand. DON’T WING IT. ROSI hates free spirits.
2. Have a backup course for every desired course so that you can get a full course load right away and avoid never-ending waitlists.
3. Have your student number ready to copy and paste. That way, if she crashes, you can log in ASAP.
4. Enroll in your courses in the following order:
- Courses that have small capacities.
- Courses that are very popular and/or are subject POSt requirements.
- Courses that have large capacities.
- Courses that are obscure and not very popular.
5. Memorize the top 3 course codes that you know will fill up fast (seminars, tutorials, smaller classes) and enter them first. That way, you won’t waste time looking at your books or other documents for the codes. If you’re really worried about messing up the codes, put them in a Word document and copy and paste them during selection time.
6. After you have chosen your courses, log out and then log back in to confirm that you are properly enrolled. It never hurts to double-check.
7. Monitor waitlists like there’s no tomorrow. If there are 0 people on the waitlist, put yourself on there! Chances are good that someone is going to drop the course before September (or someone will be taken out for not paying their fees). When they leave the course, you’ll be first in line! Once waitlists are taken down, keep checking for any free space in the course. Its all about luck and constant monitoring.
8. Don’t get caught up in waitlist drama or you’ll be paying a full-time flat fee for an empty course load or crappy courses.
- If you are 2nd on the waitlist for a class of 30, you just might get in. Chances to get in drop dramatically if you’re more than 5th in line, though.
- If you are 50th on the waitlist for a class of 1000 in Con Hall… it is very likely you’ll get in.
- Regardless of your status on a waitlist, waitlisted courses take up space in your course schedule and, until August 5th (when enrollment controls are lifted), ROSI won’t let you enroll in more than 5 courses. Try to keep waitlisted courses to just 1 or 2 until the 5th . This way, you can be certain of most of your courses but can still try your luck again.
9. Take more courses than you need. That way, if you start classes and a course does not meet your expectations, you can kiss that crappy course goodbye and you’ll still have a full course load.You can drop Y courses by February 20th (2012), F courses by November 3rd and S courses by March 11th without suffering academic penalties.
10. Stay cool, calm, and collected. Diamonds are made under pressure . If you let the stress overwhelm you, you are going to type in the wrong codes, mess up the times, or do something along those lines. Been there, done that.
Fellow blogUT contributor Jess’ post (Watilisted? Don’t Give Up!) also features some amazing ways to outsmart ROSI. Happy course enrollment!
Editor’s Note: If you have any questions regarding your Arts & Science course timetable or calender, check out this informative video. For a video specific to Rotman Commerce, click here.