I’m on the Wait List for a course! What do I do now?
Learn all about the Wait List on LionPATH on the Registrar’s help page.
When a course is filled to capacity, students are given the option to add themselves to the wait list for the course.
In the LDT Online Programs, we gauge student interest in courses according to the registration on LionPATH. If you need a course and it is currently full then you must add yourself to the Wait List on LionPATH for the course. To be clear: emails, phone calls, hallway conversations, blog comments, car magnets, movie theater whispers, etc. are not used to track and tally student need for courses. If you want to take a course, you should be on the Wait List for the course.
Students must add and remove themselves from a course Wait List via LionPATH. If you no longer want or need a course, be sure to remove yourself from the Wait List. Also, LionPATH simply does not have the functionality to allow other people to add you to a Wait List, so students must do this themselves.
When a seat in a course becomes available, the next person in line on the Wait List is automatically enrolled into the course. Students will need to track their enrollment status for a course. If a Wait List student is enrolled into the course (Hooray!), please send the course instructor a message. Note that it may take some hours (or overnight) for Canvas to allow the newly-enrolled student to access the course materials.
Students do indeed shuffle around in the first days of a course. There is no way to know the number of students who might leave a course, but the Wait List manages this process and continues to enroll the course capacity of students into the course.
Can I beg the instructor to let me into the course?
Please don’t. It will not work anyway. The Wait List on LionPATH determines the order of precedence for students to be added to the course. If an opening in a course occurs, the next person to register for it will be the next person in line on the Wait List. This is the only fair method for managing enrollment.
Can the instructor just add extra seats to their course?
It is not their decision, so the answer is no. Faculty teaching loads are managed at higher levels as a function of human resource management. The LDT Online Programs do what we can for our students, but there are limits to what we can do.
Prevention is the Best Medicine
If you do not want to be on the Wait List for a course that you need, then, plain and simple, you need to register earlier for your next term’s courses. Our courses do not fill right away, they fill after weeks of sitting open and unfilled. Registration for Fall courses typically begins in March. Registration for Spring courses typically begins in October. Registration for Summer courses typically begins in February. The LDT Online Programs’ blog for students advertises the registration dates.
Current students always have priority for registering for our courses, but the priority access that is given is that current students have the opportunity to register at a timeframe earlier than new students and nondegree/unaffiliated students. Nobody gets “bumped” from a course registration (unless the course is cancelled outright), instead priority access is granted through an earlier registration window.
