Walton12

Could someone enlighten me on coarse bidding? I am guessing that it is when a class is very popular and students have to bid with points to enroll in those classes. or am I totally wrong?

Olo

If I recall correctly, course bidding only applies to business (management science, course 15) majors.

PiperXP

Olo is right - the only bidding system there is exists in Course 15. You can read about it here:

https://sloanbid.mit.edu/registrar-student/Home.tap

molliebatmit

And the course 15 bidding system is for all classes, not just popular ones.

Walton12

why is there a bidding system? too many people?

so some business majors will not be able to take some classes?

molliebatmit

Partly I think it's to ensure that class sizes stay small, and partly it's to ensure that Sloan students have first dibs on registration for classes in the department (majors get to bid before non-majors).

I think in some perverse way, it's also to make students plan their schedules in a strategic fashion -- students get a certain number of points, and can assign them to different classes at different levels. If you really want a certain class, you'd assign it more points and have a higher likelihood of getting it, but then you would have fewer points to assign to the other classes you wanted to take.

I don't think my course 15 friends had trouble taking the classes they wanted to take, for the record.

kryptonsa36

In addition to all those things, it is also "to establish a 'fair playing field' for access to Sloan classes."

differential

I personally think it's a soft-training ground to introduce Sloanies to the brutalities of real world buisness dynamics, where you must learn to endure the sound of soles crushing the skulls of toppled colleagues as you advanced your way up the mountain of greed, learning to stab your enemy in the heart and your friend in the back and you cross the river of despair.

yeah... something like that.