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.
best of luck,
aska