Waitlisting: Faculty Guide

A student may need a class with a related class section. For a student to be enrolled in the combined lecture and lab, both the lecture and lab must be open. If the class or related class has a Wait List status, the student will be placed on a Wait List for both.

The Wait List function treats the lecture and lab as a single enrollment, and to be enrolled successfully in both, they must have an Open Status.

This holds if the situation were reversed. If the student chose a lecture with a Wait List status and selected an Open Lab, the student would be placed on a Wait List for both the lecture and lab.

Possible Errors Include:

• Time Conflicts
• Enrollment into the class would exceed Term/Session Limits.
• Unmet Course Prerequisites/Co-requisites

Classes with Related Components (lecture/lab combinations)
Auto-Enroll will move a student from the Wait List to enrollment in the class only if both the class and the related class section have seats available. No enrollment will occur if the lecture or lab has no available seats. Wait List treats the lecture and lab as a single enrollment, and in order to be enrolled successfully in both, they must have available seats. When Auto-Enroll successfully moves a student from a Wait List to Enrollment, the student’s class schedule will now show those formerly Wait-Listed classes as enrolled classes.

Waitlisting into Classes that have Related Class Sections (Additional Information)
For a student to be successfully moved off the Wait List and enrolled in a lecture and corresponding lab component, both the lecture and the lab must be open. If either of the components is closed, the student is placed on a Wait List for both components.

When the Auto-Enroll from Wait List process runs, the student will be moved from Wait-Listed to enrollment for lecture and lab only if both components are open. If either is closed, the student will retain their Wait List position in both components.

Lectures and labs work in tandem. The student cannot be enrolled in a lecture but Waitlisted for a lab (or vice versa). Wait List treats these components as one unit. You are either enrolled in both or Wait-Listed in both.

The Auto-Enroll from Wait List will process lecture components and their corresponding lab components according to the key structure (order) of the CLASS_TBL (Course ID, Course Offering Number, Term, Session Code, Class Section). Because of this, students with a higher Wait List position number may be moved from the Wait List to enrollment before students with lower Wait List position numbers.

Example:

A decision is made to increase class capacity by one student for both lectures and the lab. Now both lectures and the lab each have one open enrollment slot.

When the Auto-Enroll from Wait List process runs, Mary will get those open enrollment slots and be moved from the Wait List to enrollment in her lecture and lab, but John will not.

Although they are Waitlisted in different lecture sections, they are Waitlisted in the same lab, and John is in position #1 for the lab, so why didn’t he get the space?

Here is why:
Because the Auto-Enroll processing order is based on the CLASS_TBL key, the classes will be processed in the following order:

1. Lecture 1 (section 1)
2. Lecture 2 (section 2)
3. Lab A (section LA1)

Since Mary is Wait-Listed in Lecture 1, she will be evaluated before John. Auto-Enroll will check to see if there is an open slot in Lecture 1 (section 1) and also an open slot in Lab A. Since there is now an open slot in both components, Mary will be moved from the Wait List to Enrollment for both Lecture 1 and Lab A, even though her Wait List position in Lab A was #2.

Once Auto-Enroll is finished processing Lecture 1 it will move to the next section, Lecture 2 (section 2). It is John’s turn to be evaluated since he is Waitlisted in Lecture 2. There is an open slot now in Lecture 2, but unfortunately, the open slot in Lab A was taken by Mary, and therefore, John will not be moved from the Wait List to enrollment in the Lecture and Lab, even though he was in Wait List position 1 for the Lab.

Remember, the Wait List treats the lecture and lab like a single unit. A student can only be moved from the Wait List to enrollment if the lecture and lab have an open enrollment slot. Consequently, John will remain Waitlisted for both the lecture and lab and will not be re-evaluated until additional slots open.

• If a class has been set up for Waitlisting and has reached its enrollment capacity and closes, it will become available for Waitlisting.
• Students may add themselves to a Wait List during preregistration enrollment; however, enrollments from the Wait List do not occur until open enrollment begins.
• A closed class with an active Wait List will not change from CLOSED to OPEN status during preregistration, even if the enrollment capacity is changed. The class remains CLOSED. When open enrollment begins, and the Auto-Enroll function runs, Waitlisted students will be given priority for enrollment.
• When a student is moved from a Wait List to enrollment in a class, all other students on the Wait List for that class will move up in the queue.
• When Auto-Enroll is processing a Wait List and a student does not meet the criteria for the class, the student with the next Wait List position number will be evaluated.
• Students cannot get on a Wait List until their enrollment appointment date arrives or open enrollment has begun.
• When a Waitlisted class has reached the Wait List capacity, the Wait List feature becomes unavailable, and the blue closed class icon will display for the class status.
• Students can Wait List for multiple sections of the same course. If they become enrolled in any section of that course, they will be removed from any Wait Lists they may be on for other sections of that course. This is the case regardless of the method of enrollment, whether Auto- Enroll, Self-Service Enrollment, Enrollment Request, Quick Enroll, Block Enrollment, etc.
• Time conflicts for a class are not checked when a student is added to a Wait List. The time conflict will be checked when Auto-Enroll attempts to move the student from the Wait List to Enrollment.
• When swapping a student from one class to another, they can only swap from a class in which they are enrolled. They cannot swap from a Waitlisted class. A swap can only be made into a class with a Wait List.
• If a seat becomes available for a Waitlisted class and Auto-Enroll cannot move students from the Wait List into the class to fill that space, the class status will automatically be changed to OPEN until the Auto-Enroll process runs again.
• If a student is enrolled in a lecture and lab and wishes to Wait List for a different lab but keeps the same lecture, that student will be dropped from their lecture and placed at the front of that same lecture’s Wait List ahead of all other students while they wait for a seat to open in the lab. That student will be given position number one on the Wait List for the same lecture. Students already on the Wait List for the lecture will see their Wait List position numbers increase because the previously enrolled student is placed at the front of the Wait List queue. This scenario applies if a student wishes to be placed on the Wait List for a different lecture but keeps the same lab.
  • Internally, PeopleSoft assigns a position number of zero to that student, but the student would never see that zero. They would see a Wait List position number of one.
  • If another student enrolled in that same lecture also to go on the Wait List to a different lab but chooses to keep the same lecture, they will also be assigned an internal Wait List position number of zero, resulting in now two students having an internal Wait List position number of zero. Each student would see a Wait List position of two. If one student has an internal position number of zero, they will see a Wait List position number of one. If two students have an internal position number of zero, they will both have a Wait List position number of two. If there are three students, then all three of them will have a Wait List position number of three, and so on. This appears to be a quirk with PeopleSoft.
  • Although there may be one or more students on a Wait List with an internal position number of zero, Auto-Enroll will process these students correctly along with all other students on the class Wait List.