Third years are opened to solar before second year students,does this mean that when second years get in the courses will be full?

Originally Posted by sierrawin

Third years are opened to solar before second year students,does this mean that when second years get in the courses will be full?

Possibly. Quite likely they will grab some spots. Remember that fourth year students got in first! And in some cases they need specific courses to graduate.

It's the job of each department, in consultation with the faculty, to provide a suitable number of places to meet expected demand. If necessary, additional spaces can be created ad hoc. It's not hard for a prof to accommodate a few more bums in the hall. It just takes a few more TAs to do the marking.

If you're concerned, remember. Your time will come too, one of these years...

Originally Posted by oldviking

Possibly. Quite likely they will grab some spots. Remember that fourth year students got in first! And in some cases they need specific courses to graduate.

It's the job of each department, in consultation with the faculty, to provide a suitable number of places to meet expected demand. If necessary, additional spaces can be created ad hoc. It's not hard for a prof to accommodate a few more bums in the hall. It just takes a few more TAs to do the marking.

If you're concerned, remember. Your time will come too, one of these years...

Actually, the school allocates a specific number of spots to each department/year for a class. That is why there are only a specific number of spots available in first year classes to fourth/third/second year students and is the reason that by the time the first year students go onto SOLAR there are enough spots for them to get their required courses. Same thing goes for other levels IE second year classes, third year classes, fourth year classes etc.

So, if Bio 1A03 is currently full to fourth and third year students there are actually still spots available to second and first year students. Spots get allocated to levels and departments to ensure that upper years can't take ALL of the spots in a given class.

Originally Posted by oldviking

Possibly. Quite likely they will grab some spots. Remember that fourth year students got in first! And in some cases they need specific courses to graduate.

It's the job of each department, in consultation with the faculty, to provide a suitable number of places to meet expected demand. If necessary, additional spaces can be created ad hoc. It's not hard for a prof to accommodate a few more bums in the hall. It just takes a few more TAs to do the marking.

If you're concerned, remember. Your time will come too, one of these years...

Physical space is an issue too. Rooms only have a limited number of seats. While many departments reserve a handful of spots for people who NEED the course but could not get in, once the room is full they can't really do anything about it, and they certainly don't give away these spots to people who want them but don't actually need the course.

Also, not all courses have seats allocated by year/section. I found a pdf about a week ago that listed what allocations were for all the courses, but I'm too lazy to go looking for it again It does exist, though.

I too have a question. Will i only be able to accept my offer for the program i picked when solar opens?