While there is not an exact science to ranking your classes and clinics each round, the Registrar’s Office has a few general guidelines for approaching this step.
- What is important to you?
- If you highly rank the offerings you want the most, you will give yourself the best chance of enrollment either through the initial selection round or through waitlist processing.
- If you rank aa offering #1 and are not enrolled initially, you will be higher on the waitlist than if you ranked it #2 or lower.
- Review the Course Reference Guide
- The Course Reference Guide has catalog information (meeting schedule, credit amounts, exam/no exam) and will also include the seat capacity for your program
- The number of seats in an offering can be a very helpful factor when determining how to preference
- Generally, the lower the capacity of an offering, the higher it would need to be ranked to give a student the best chance of enrollment
- For example, a reading group with 9 JD seats should typically be ranked higher than a course with 48 JD seats. Please note these numbers are not the full cap for the offering, just the number of JD seats.
- Relatedly, smaller offerings tend to have less waitlist movement than larger ones
- Fall vs Winter vs Spring Multisection Courses
- Generally it is beneficial to rank Fall courses higher than Winter and Spring courses as there is more waitlist processing time for those later offerings
- Fall Add/Drop Deadline: September 9th
- Winter Add/Drop Deadline: January 6th
- Spring Add/Drop Deadline: January 31st
- Keep an eye out for offerings with unique, early deadlines (e.g. Negotiation Workshop) Review catalog descriptions to see if one of your preferred classes has a unique deadline.
- Please keep in mind that if you have other priorities, ranking Fall higher than Winter and Spring might not be the best course of action (e.g. taking a class with a specific instructor in the Spring). Keep your personal priorities for the year in mind.
- Generally it is beneficial to rank Fall courses higher than Winter and Spring courses as there is more waitlist processing time for those later offerings
- How to think about demand
- The HLS curriculum offers many new and interesting offerings every academic year, and student priorities vary year to year. Demand for individual offerings is therefore not always predictable, as it may shift with these unique circumstances.
- The Board of Student Advisors can help students explore how to think about preferencing and demand from a student’s perspective.