After completing a successful pilot in the summer and fall, ACC plans to add a waitlist option for several more courses for the spring semester.

Currently students can waitlist for select biology and developmental math classes. For the spring semester, courses in business and social and behavioral sciences will include waitlists.

“Students are now asking for all courses to be waitlisted, and the plan is to continue expanding,” says Kathleen Christensen, vice president, student support and success systems. “The waitlist provides a more orderly, equitable, and systematic process for students to register for high-demand classes.”

“The waitlist provides a more orderly, equitable, and systematic process for students to register for high-demand classes.”

Christensen noted that the pilot was a successful collaboration of IT, faculty and staff, instructional support, marketing, and student services.

“We had a common goal of improving registration for students for these high-demand courses,” she says. ”All who were involved in the project had a can-do attitude. It went like clockwork.”

Mark McCaffery, administrative assistant in the Biology Department, says offering a waitlist benefits both students and staff.

“Students don’t have to keep checking to see whether a spot has opened in a class they need,” he says, adding that the option also has reduced the number of phone calls and emails staff and faculty receive from students seeking openings.“This has been a real advantage to those students whose work and family commitments leave only a narrow timeframe for taking classes.”

As students register, they can opt to be placed on a waitlist when a section becomes full. They are placed on the list on a first-come, first-served basis. As registered students drop the class, and a spot becomes open, waitlisted students are notified through their ACC email account. They then have until 5 p.m. the following day to register for the class. Students can remove themselves from waitlists for classes they no longer want.

Once a course section’s waitlist is activated, any seats that are open are filled only from the waitlist during regular registration. Waitlists are dropped at the end of regular registration, and any student can register for open seats during the add/drop period.

Faculty and staff can learn how the waitlist process works at a presentation on Friday, October 28 from 2:30 to 3:00 p.m. at the Highland Business Center in Room 212. Laura Tahamtan, administrative assistant in the Biology Department, and McCaffery will discuss procedures and answer questions. For more information about waitlisting, click here.