Admitting Students to Classes (Procedure)

The upper limit on electives is normally 45 for electives and 55 for core courses in the Undergraduate and Masters level programs we offer. When courses are full, students are placed on a waiting list.

Masters Courses

  • If a section fills and additional students wish to enrol in the course, Student Services creates and manages a wait list. This list is the mechanism by which students are admitted to the course if spaces become available.
  • Students may enrol in a course until the end of the first week of class without special permission. (If, and only if, you wish to have students be able to add the course you are teaching until the end of the second week of classes, you should inform Student Services in writing (email will do). Student Services will then continue to work with the wait listed students during the second week.)
  • There is no need for instructors to give permission to individual students (sign them in). An instructor that does sign in a student will have effectively agreed to increase her class size by the number of students signed in.
  • We take these steps to make the wait list the single mechanism for gaining enrolled status in a section that has filled. Instructors may, at their discretion, increase the class limit; Student Services will then enrol students in order from the wait list until the new maximum is reached (or subject to space availability in the room).

Undergraduate Courses

  • By university policy, all undergraduate students may enrol in courses up through the end of the 2nd week of class without the instructor’s permission (please see here for precise dates).
  • Student Services maintains wait lists for filled undergraduate classes and manages openings the same way as they do for Master’s level courses.
  • There is no need for instructors to give permission to individual students (sign them in). An instructor that does sign in a student will have effectively agreed to increase her class size by the number of students signed in.

Note: Please note that a student must formally enrol either using online university procedures or through staff-assisted enrollment procedures to be formally enrolled in a course. Your permission by itself, or a student simply having attended without proper enrollment, will not provide the student standing as being enrolled in your course.