ATTENTION: Instructors of Spring 2024 and Summer 2024 Courses
RE: Important Change to Course Registration Overrides During Winter Recess
We are writing to let you know of an important and temporary change to Spring 2024 and Summer 2024 course registration overrides here at calendar year-end
Beginning at 12:00 p.m. on Friday, December 22nd, students will not be able to register for courses off of a waitlist. This means that if a student is next on a waitlist and a seat becomes available, the student will not be able to immediately register for that open seat. That seat, however, will be held for the student, and the student will be notified on Tuesday, January 2nd that the student has a 24-hour window to register for the course. All registration off of waitlists will return to normal around 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, January 2nd.
To facilitate this and to avoid additional complications, we will also be removing the option to issue a Seat Limit (Closed Course) Registration Override from ESTHER during this period. This will affect all courses, even if they do not utilize waitlists.
If you need to issue a Seat Limit (Closed Course) Registration Override for a student, please issue one prior to 12:00 p.m. on Friday, December 22nd or wait until after 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, January 2nd.
Why are we making this change?
We've found that the 24-hour waitlist registration window has occasionally conflicted with student plans and has resulted in students losing the ability to register for a course in which they were next on the waitlist. This has been particularly true the week between Christmas and New Year's Day. Additionally, Rice staff will be observing two holidays and Winter Recess for the period of December 25th to January 1st, so there would be limited staff to assist students should they run into a registration issue inside a registration window.
How is the Seat Limit (Closed Course) Registration Override involved in this?
While instructors should never issue a Seat Limit (Closed Course) Registration Override for a course with an ESTHER waitlist, we have found that some instructors have. This causes downstream ramifications for students on the waitlist; particularly, it causes students on the waitlist to not be able to register when a seat becomes available. The only way for us to ensure that we can preserve the waitlists during this "pause" is by removing the ability to enter a Seat Limit (Closed Course) Registration Override.
Will students lose their spots on a course's ESTHER waitlist?
No, all waitlists will be preserved. We are only pausing registration off of waitlists from Friday, December 22nd through Tuesday, January 2nd. This means that if a student in the class drops, the seat will remain open/held for the first student on the waitlist. On January 2nd, those students who have held seats will receive an email stating that their 24-hour registration window has begun, and they will need to take action during that window to register for the course.
Please note that during this brief timeframe, it may look like there are "open" seats in the class when you look at the course schedule; however, if there are students on the waitlist, those seats are reserved for those students.
Thank you, and we wish you a restful Winter Recess!