courses - askastudent

courses, wait list

my olympic sport is uoft course enrolment

August 14, 2024

why am I refused to a course that I’m waitlisted?

hey there,

alright, so you were refused from a course that you were waitlisted for.

well, i’m gonna be honest, there are multiple ways i could interpret this question. i’m not too sure whether you’re asking why you were waitlisted, or why the waitlist closed, or if you were just mysteriously refused from a course.

sooo i’m gonna address all these situations just in case. i hope that’s alright with you.

1. being waitlisted

the critical info you need here is that being waitlisted for a course means that you’re not in yet because the course is full. it’s essentially a “lineup” for the course. i know this can be disappointing and a little (or a lot) stressful, especially if you need to take that course to get into or complete your program.

but it happens because U of T needs to regulate the class sizes in order to organize classrooms, or something like that. in my experience, the max class size is just the number of seats in a classroom. sometimes they are able to expand and switch classrooms if there’s a lot of people on the waitlist, but most of the time you just have to wait it out and hope for the best.

a general rule of thumb is that if your spot in the waitlist is within the top 10% of the class size, you’ll get in. so if the class size is 70, then you’ll be fine if you’re in the top 7 of the waitlist. (you’ll be able to check what number you are on the waitlist on acorn, at the bottom of the “courses” page.) but, keep in mind that this rule really depends on the level of interest for the class and is just a rough estimate.

if you’re still waitlisted but pretty high on the list when classes start, don’t give up hope! in the case that the class is pretty big (aka over 40-ish and not a seminar), and it’s held in person, you can technically attend lecture until you’re off the waitlist. how will they know you’re not supposed to be there? 😀

i know people who have done that, and it’s worked for them. this allows you to not fall behind if you get into the course a few weeks after the start of classes. sure, during that time you won’t have access to the quercus page and course resources, but you can befriend someone who does!

don’t worry about keeping an eye on your waitlist rank though. when a spot opens up, you’ll be automatically added into the course and you’ll receive an email.

2. waitlist closing

next, maybe you were recently booted from the waitlist.

well, waitlists do have a closing date each term, which happens a few days before course enrolment closes. these dates will be listed on the academic dates & deadlines page. after the waitlist closes, spots in courses will be available on a first-come first-served basis. so this is the one case where you do have to obsessively check the course availability — whoever catches an open spot and enrols first gets it. at least, during the few days until enrolment closes.

3. refused enrolment in a course

that brings us to my last guess. you were refused enrolment in a course.

well, there are a number of reasons why this might have happened. but the #1 reason why this happens is because you don’t meet an enrolment control and aren’t eligible to take the course.

for example, you’ll be refused enrolment if you haven’t taken the required pre-requisites or co-requisites. or, the course might only be available to students in a certain program or year. in fact, some courses even require separate application and approval processes through the department. regardless, these should all show up under the course’s enrolment indicators on timetable builder.

the only other reason i can think of is, maybe you might have reached the course load limit, which is 6.0 credits for the fall-winter session combined (max of 3.0 credits per semester). or maybe your academic standing is affecting your enrolment? this would only happen if your GPA is less than 1.5. but, i’m not super sure how this works.

overall, i would highly encourage you to contact your college registrar if you’re in this third section where you were mysteriously refused from a course. they are more knowledgeable on the behind-the-scenes aspect of course enrolment and would be able to help you figure out the reason why this happened.

and, yeah.

i hope one of these options was relevant and answered your question. if not, well. so much of this job is a guessing game, i’m bound to get it wrong sometimes.

best of luck, i really hope you figure it out!

over and out,

aska

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campus, choosing, competition, courses

day 47389 of asking you to be more specific

July 7, 2024
What courses do you think are the least to highest in competitiveness. And also what campus do you think are the least to highest in competitiveness.

hey there,

well, as you can see on the U of T course timetable, there are almost 8000 courses offered during the fall/winter school year across all its undergrad faculties.

you want to know which of these are the least to highest in competitiveness? have i got a list for you, ranked highest to lowest in competition:
wait maybe applied game theory should be number one, cause that’s crazy. do they apply? game theory? in class? against each other? for grades? who cares about deathly crimes (aka emotional warfare) when you’ve got grades on the line.

ok don’t take anything i just said seriously. i’ve just been emotionally scarred by some classmates.

jokes aside, realistically, there is no way of saying which of the 8000 courses are highest and lowest in competitiveness without taking all of them or having some sort of crazed opinion-based database. unfortunately, the closest U of T students have ever come to making one of those was the anti-calendar, which mysteriously died out sometime in 2011.

the only actual general knowledge on competitiveness at U of T is that the rotman business programs are definitely every-man-for-himself. i know several people in rotman, and not only is it super difficult to get good grades there, you have to be extensively involved in extra-curricular programming and clubs. the vibe is that there’s a lot of fake sucking-up and networking in those circles. i heard they do peer evaluations after some group projects, where they have to prepare an argument to present to their prof as to why they should get higher grades than their group members who “did less work”. brutal, i tell ya.

so as you’ll probably guess, competition also depends on the size of your program. i think with really popular programs that have limited enrolment, you would encounter more competition in class rather than in open enrolment programs. some of the smaller programs also have more tight-knit communities, where everyone is more welcoming and kind to each other. i’d say this is definitely the case with niche social science programs.

from past research, i’ve heard entry into the computer science program is really competitive, though i’m not sure how it is after you get in. and, i took some political science adjacent courses and those were pretty competitive compared to life sci courses i’ve taken. in poli sci/public policy/peace conflict and justice courses, i guess you’ve just got a concentration of people who want to be world leaders or politicians, so you get the vibe.

honestly, it would be a lot to give my opinion on every single one of the 700 programs U of T offers, so maybe give me a shortlist of ones that you’re curious about instead?

as for competition across the three U of T campuses, i can actually tell you about that because i can actually count the number on one hand :D!

based on what i’ve heard from people who have taken classes in all three campuses, UTM (mississauga) is the most competitive, UTSG (st. george) is in the middle, and UTSC (scarborough) is the least competitive. however, that’s not to say every single UTM course is competitive, i think it just depends what your specific program would be.

anyhoo, hope this somewhat answered your questions? if not, i hope you enjoyed my yap session.

and if you really want an answer, don’t hesitate to shoot another, more specific, question!

over and out,

aska
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courses, enrolment, first year

don’t walk, run to enrol in FYF courses

July 17, 2023
Hello,

I’m a St. Mikes student looking to enrol in PSY195. I see this message in the enrolment cart: “This section is restricted to two groups of students. Group 1 is given priority access until July 26. There is no course enrolment on July 27. Beginning July 28, Group 2 can enrol in this section. Currently the following groups of students can enrol in this section:
- All students in year of study 1 in the Faculty of Arts and Science in the Innis College”
Does this mean that I will not be in the first group, available to enroll on the 20th?

Thank you

hi there,

i am so glad you’re deciding to take a first year foundation seminar, they’re SO great and i wish i could still take them. (btw if you wanted to, you could check out this instagram page all about FYF courses. just puttin it out there, idk i think it’s cool *waves hands dismissively*)

yes, you are correct. my divine intuition (the timetable) tells me that enrolling in PSY195H1 S will only be available to first year innis students on july 20th. as a first year st. mikes student, you’ll have to wait until the 28th, when the general enrolment period starts. (more specifically, for first year students, that’ll be at 12 pm EDT).

PSY195 has a really small class size of 25, which is amazing for making friends, but also means it’ll be harder to get into. chances are, it’ll fill up pretty fast like all first year foundations courses, especially if you have to wait until general enrolment. i’d recommend keeping an eye on the availability up until then so you’re aware of the situation when you enrol. however, i doubt it’ll fill up immediately.

i just thought i’d let you know about another option, too! if you wanted to, you could consider enrolling in the fall semester’s PSY195 instead of the winter semester’s, since this one is available to you on the 20th. the course is being offered in both semesters, and the enrolment restrictions are slightly different:

PSY195H1 F (fall semester) is open to all first year artsci students on the 20th. PSY195H1 S (winter semester) is only open to first year artsci innis students on the 20th.

anyways, best of luck in your first year. live laugh love, be Boundless, be yourself, all that jazz.

over and out,

aska
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choosing, courses, new kids

a user manual on courses that you should, probably, read

June 5, 2023
This may be a really stupid question, but could you explain courses (their typing(?) clusters(???)) as well as the course selection process and what needs to be considered? Every time i think i got everything i need to know im hit with new terminology i do not understand ? for context im an incoming (hopefully) part-time student at utm, class of ‘27, planning to transfer out by first year but will pursue an english maj philosoy min creative writing min courseload if transferring doesnt work out

hi bestie,

no worries, this is not a stupid question. i see you’re encountering first-year’s overwhelming task of deciphering the online labyrinth of “important-uni-things-you’re-just-expected-to-know”.

the good thing is, courses aren’t as complicated as they seem at first! tbh, i think the problem is that a lot of first years just don’t know where to find the right resources. or, they’re like me and gaslighted themselves into thinking it’s all common sense — what my high school chemistry class used to do before a test. as fun as that is, please don’t do that.

anyways. there are several U of T pages that describe everything you need to know about courses. to begin, i would say your best bet is to read through how to use the artsci calendar. this page explains pretty much all the basics about courses and programs, such as how courses are abbreviated on the website, and what things to keep in mind when choosing courses. among what is outlined on that page, understanding course codes is the foundational thing that i would highlight. for example, ENG110Y1 can be broken down into:
1. ENG – indicates department, ENG = english.
2. 110 – indicates level of difficulty. the “100” means a first-year level course, and 200-level courses are recommended to take in second year as they are more difficult. and so forth with 3rd year 300-levels and 4th year 400-levels. while an upper year can take easier courses, it would be hard for a first year to take a 3rd year course.
3. Y – the “Y” or “H” indicates the credit value. Y = full course, 1.0 credits, and H = half course, 0.5 credits.
4. 1 – indicates which campus offers this course. 1 = St.George, 3 = UTSC, 5 = UTM
when choosing your courses, you should take note of prerequisites (courses you need to take before another course), exclusions (courses that are so similar you probably shouldn’t take both), and co-requisites (courses you should take at the same time). if a course has any of these, it will say so on the timetable, degree explorer, and acorn. you should also know that there are four types of classes: lectures, tutorials, practicals, and seminars, explained, again, in “how to use the artsci calendar“. and a side note of personal advice — although you’re a part time student, i would highly recommend making space in your schedule to take first year foundation courses, those were my favourite classes in first year. but the best thing to consider in course selection is to make note of important dates so you don’t miss them (wouldn’t that be silly): such as priority course enrolment for first years, which starts on July 20th.

now in terms of your question about typing and clusters, i’m not sure what you mean by typing, as “type” is mainly used for program types. meanwhile, clusters are just categories of courses within a program. typically each program will break down its large list of courses into similar-subject categories. for example, your english major seems to have three clusters that you need credits in: 1. “indigenous, post colonial, transnational literatures”, 2. “pre-1800 english literature” and 3. “theory, language, critical methods”.

see? not so bad.

finally, i will leave you with even more resource avenues you can look into if you want to know more. there’s an awesome new student guide to planning and enrolling in your courses, with important dates and how to pay your fees. sid smith also has a simple page on how to enrol in courses. UTM’s 2023 course enrolment workbook is “to be posted soon“, and course enrolment workshops could be helpful for you. then, if you really want to know everything, as you say, you can go down a rabbit hole reading through the artsci’s course planning and course enrolment pages (but i really don’t think you need to).

best of luck in your plan, i hope it all goes smoothly.

over and out,

aska
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courses, current student, forensic science, wait list

more waitlist woes…

August 15, 2022

If there is a waitlist of 40+ people for an fsc course, do you think it’ll be offered in summer? Its fsc316 and it was only offered once in summer in 2021. FSC minors need it too but they only offer a few spots and the majors and specialists take those:(

hey there,

first of all, that’s a friggin cool program! although i must admit i had to look up fsc to realize that it wasn’t french (fsl) but actually FORENSIC SCIENCE like woah.

to be honest, i don’t really know, but since this course hasn’t really been offered in previous summers, i wouldn’t bank on it happening this year. i mean sure, it might, but that probably depends on a lot of different factors, and just because a course has a long waitlist doesn’t mean they’ll offer more sessions of it.

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i did do some digging into the fsc minor though, and according to the utm academic calendar, it seems that fsc316 isn’t actually required. i don’t wanna be that guy going ‘ok but do you need that course’, but you might wanna take another look at what exactly is required for your program, in case you could take a different course instead? for example, the utm calendar lists fsc316 as part of list of a bunch of courses, and out of those, you’re supposed to take 0.5 FCEs — so any other half year course on there should do!

however, if you’ve now developed an emotional attachment to getting into this course — i understand.

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assuming you’re in third year right now, so one possible strat is to try getting into the course in your fourth year, since you’ll have higher priority in course selections. that could get tricky though if the course has other types of priority enrolment for specialists/majors etc, so if you’re hoping to go down this route, i’d recommend emailing your department or the course instructor to ask about their process for this. another potential issue is that this may throw a wrench in some of your fourth year course plans, if fsc316 is a prereq for anything else you’re interested in.

if you do end up really needing the course, i’d also recommend asking your registrar for tips. for example, 4th year arts and science students at utsg get a special lil dean’s promise that we can invoke to get into mandatory courses that are required to graduate, and although i’m not sure if utm has a similar thing, it doesn’t hurt to ask around and see if there’s anything else you could do.

best of luck!

aska

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courses, current student, minor

a minor issue

July 5, 2022

do i have to take every course required for a minor in my first year to be able to declare it?

hey there,

probably not. most minors that i know of are open enrolment and only require at least 4.0 FCEs completed by the time you apply. other than that, there are no restrictions on the year that you complete the program courses, as long as you complete them all by the time you graduate. although courses might be 100-level or listed as “first year”, in most cases those are kind of just recommended, not required.

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some exceptions would be the computer science minor, for example, where students in the CMP1 stream would need to complete the required courses in their first year, but even for out of stream students, there isn’t really any restriction on having to complete courses in a certain year, you’d just need to have them ready by the time you apply for POSt.

you can search up the minors you’re interested in on the artsci calendar or email the department to see if there are other restrictions.

hope that helps!

aska

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courses, current student, enrollment, tutorials

i am confusion

June 23, 2022

im so confused should i enroll in lectures or tutorials help please!!

hi confused (sorry i had to),

me too. i’m confused too.

i’m gonna assume you’re starting first year in september (or have otherwise avoided enrolling in any lectures or tutorials this year somehow??) so here’s a quick rundown of how lectures and tutorials,work. lectures (LEC) are the actual “classes” you’ll be attending, while tutorials (TUT) are smaller workshops, Q & As or problem solving sessions. there are also practicals (PRA) which are things like labs for science students.

you’d have to enroll in everything your course requires, so if a course says it has lectures and tutorials, then yeah, you’d have to enroll in both on acorn. (and yes, they’d both be mandatory, unless the instructor says otherwise.)

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if you’re at utsg you can check the artsci timetable to see if they offer lectures/practicals/tutorials. you can also search up your courses on acorn right now and there’ll be options to add lectures or tutorials if they’re available.

just as a heads up, i’ve also had some profs who held tutorials at times that were actually different from the ones on acorn, or added optional tutorials outside of class time which you wouldn’t have to enroll on acorn either, but usually the lecture/tutorial schedule follows what’s on acorn.

hope that helps,

aska

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courses, current student, full-time, part-time

if a course gets ncr’d did you ever really take it

May 21, 2022

Hello, I’m an international student taking only 3 credits. I’m not doing great in a course and considering declaring it non-credit. If I am to fail it, will it impact my full-time status?

hi friend,

apologies for the late reply! hopefully you’ve gotten some advice on this already, but if not, maybe this can still help.

if you’re taking exactly 3.0 FCEs this school year, then failing or dropping the course could drop you down to part-time status. so the answer is probably yes, but it depends (gotta love that, i know).

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for example, osap funding requires you to enroll in and pass at least 3.0 FCEs for a school year (search “osap academic progress”) — otherwise, you might be put on probation.

but depending on who you ask, the criteria mayyyy differ. i mean, what even is ‘full-time’ anyway? it’s possible that funding/programs/employers/whoever else you’re tryna impress could consider an ncr differently, so you might want to ask directly to be sure.

i would also recommend speaking to your registrar for more info, and for support in your future courses!

good luck~

aska

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courses, current student, not a question but ok, wait list

if you’re in cdn355…

May 14, 2022

can somebody drop CDN355, im on the waitlist. I REALLY NEED THIS COURSE PLEASE

just getting the word out.

good luck!

aska

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courses, current student, UTM

an imposter among us (sorry, i had to)

May 12, 2022

Hello! I’m a st george student and just realized a course I’ve been taking online is from the mississauga campus. Does it matter? will the mark count toward my grade do I have to tell anyone about this?

hey there!

generally the course would count towards your gpa and degree requirements, as long as it’s not an exclusion for a course that you’ve already taken. exclusions would be marked as extra courses and won’t count towards your gpa or degree.

you should also double check with your registrar’s office to see if the course would count towards your degree requirements. if you’re hoping to take the course for your program requirements (major, minor, specialist, etc.) then you’d also need to ask your department.

there’s some more info on taking courses at other colleges on this page, under “Courses in Other Divisions”, but that pretty much covers the main points!

so rest assured, as long as you have a chat with your registrar to clear things up, it’ll likely be fine… just act natural and channel your inner utm student.

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all the best,

aska

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courses, current student, programs

gotta get with the program

April 25, 2022
Are only my first 20 credits counted for program requirements? Ahhh its so confusing

hello there,

ahhhh indeed.

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according to the artsci calendar, you need at least 20.0 credits to graduate, courses beyond that can still count towards your program requirements.

you just gotta make sure that your 20.0 (or more) credits satisfy these conditions:
- at least 13.0 FCEs at the 200+ level
- at least 6.0 FCEs at the 300+ level
- at least 10.0 FCEs from the faculty of arts and sciences
the one thing you might have to be careful about is that if you have over 15.0 FCEs with the same three letter designation in the course code (e.g. ENG, or MAT), only the first 15 will count towards your degree requirements… but technically, maybe they can still count for your program requirements? i guess if you do find yourself in the unique dilemma of having 15+ FCEs with the same three letter code, it’d be best to check with your registrar, just in case!

hope that helps!

aska
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auditing, courses, current student

don’t let your dream (courses) be dreams

March 16, 2022

Hey! I found out about a course I’ve been dreaming of way too late. I’m on the wait list, but it’s a small class and i’m like 33rd ? so no chance of me getting in. Is there anything i can do at all to still be able to take it? It’s online and I dont know if emailing a prof or the department would do any good for me.

hey there,

ironically, i think i may be answering your question way too late… sorry 🙁 but hope this can still help in some way.

i think 33rd on the waitlist might be too far down to get the prof to accept you directly over the other students who were also interested, but if the waitlist moves along enough, you could have a good shot. anyhow, it doesn’t hurt to ask. some smaller courses (think <20 students) have actually had surprisingly high drop rates in my experience, so there may still be hope!

another thing is, you may want to ask the prof about auditing the course. auditing would allow you to attend and participate in lectures and classes, but you wouldn’t get a credit for the course or submit any assignments/evaluations.

you can audit courses for free as a uoft student, or if you really want to get a nice shiny official Certificate of Attendance™, there would be an auditing fee of usually 40% or more of the course tuition. in any case, this could be a good way to get into the class if you mostly want to attend out of interest, and won’t be able to take the course in later years. heck, you can even audit courses after graduating (if you haven’t had enough school yet…) with permission of the department/instructor, and the auditing fee.

not all departments/instructors will allow auditing, but the best way to find out if you could audit is just to reach out to the prof directly and ask.

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best of luck,

aska

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choosing, courses, current student, prereqs

course selections is like tetris but more frustrating

March 5, 2022

Hello! I was wondering… if we’re supposed to take classes for our enrolled major (second year) but also want to enroll at the end of our second year for another major- how do we balance our course load to take the prerequisites AND our major requirements? Thanks a bunch 🙂

hey there,

hope second year is going well~ i’d probably prioritize the courses you need to enter the major you wanna apply for, and then try to fit in the courses/prereqs you need for your current major.

for most majors, there’s no strict requirement on what year you take your courses in, so you could take some of your 200-level courses next year if needed, and just generally mix and match the different course levels as long as you have the prerequisites.

you might want to plan everything out on degree explorer to make sure that you’ll have all the prereqs you need for upper year courses. course planning is kind of a pain but there’s also something satisfying when you finally get all of those forty-something coloured blocks to fit in your plan :’)

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hope that helps,

aska

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