Information About Course Enrollment at New Student Orientation

A component of the New Student Orientation sessions is enrolling in Fall Quarter classes, and many students (and their parents) are concerned about the availability of courses at different session dates. Here is a Listed below is a brief explanation of how enrollment works at UCLA, and how the New Student Orientation session enrollment works relative to that.

• UCLA students enroll online with a system called URSA. The dates of enrollment – who goes first, second and so on – are based on class level. If you are a graduating senior, for example, then you have the highest priority (or first time) to enroll, and the times continue to be set by class level (senior, junior, sophomore, first year).

• Students have a first- and second- pass at enrollment. The first pass allows students to enroll in up to 10 units (usually 2 courses). The two passes have separate enrollment dates and times, but the second passes do not begin until all students have had their first pass.

• All continuing students have completed their “first pass” at enrollment before the New Student Orientation sessions begin. But new students do not have a first/second pass. They enroll in all their courses at their Orientation session.

• For this reason, many think that if you enroll in an earlier session, you will get all your classes and if you enroll in a later session you will get no classes. This is simply untrue. There are plenty of course choices throughout the summer, fulfilling both General Education and major courses.

• For courses where there is a “high demand”, we have in place a system whereby all students, regardless of New Student Orientation session date, have an equal chance of enrolling in the course. These “high demand” courses are ones that start out a sequence in the sciences, are taken by many incoming first year students (like English Composition courses), essential for certain majors, and/or are part of the General Education Cluster curricula.

  • Working with individual departments, we have saved seats for incoming students and divided them evenly during the summer. Does this mean we have enough seats for every single student that wants a given course? Not necessarily. But we have made it an equitable process; it does not matter if you come to the first session or the last, you will have the same chance of getting a spot in one of these courses.

• Often the perception from students is that if they do not come to the first session, they will not get the “best” courses. The best courses at UCLA are ALL the courses at UCLA – your student has chosen UCLA for its world-class faculty and curricula, among many other things, and it means that those opportunities are available for all students who enroll for their first quarter at UCLA, regardless of when they come this summer.

  • The “best schedule” idea is one of time and day scheduling. This means that a student may have to attend classes that are before noon, and/or are held on Mondays and Fridays, something students have done for many years. It is this mentality, however, that often translates into the ‘urban legend’ of “go to the first session or you won’t get any good classes”. It is no coincidence that the 8:00 am lecture does not fill up as easily as the 10:00 am lecture for the same class. The students who are willing to show some flexibility and open-mindedness to this will find numerous options.

• The same holds true for the type of courses the students can choose. Whether the student is coming from a high school or another community college, the course offerings at UCLA will be vastly different, and from a very wide range. Students will be encouraged to explore areas of study that interest them, begin (or continue) along a major path, and complete General Education requirements that are required for all our students regardless of major/school. The first quarter schedule, then, could have several very different courses selected that fulfill different requirements. It is our hope that students look at all the course offerings at UCLA before focusing in on the courses that they may be familiar with from their prior institution.

Finally, choosing courses is a process of academic exploration. We encourage students to look at this as the beginning of their journey to engage in studies that are of true interest to them. While learning a new system at a new school can be a daunting prospect, new students will be assisted along the way by a wonderful staff of counselors who will guide them through the process and answer any question they have.