Registration vs freshman orientation - when do new students get their schedules?

[DiotimaDM]

Hi, all!

Registration for New Student Orientation is open, and the UNM website seems to say that freshmen register for classes during orientation.

Does anyone know / remember exactly how this works? I ask because we’d like to do the last orientation in August, the one that’s right before move-in, but if we do, does that mean S gets his classes last, after all of the kids who did orientation in May, June, July, etc?

What about kids in the Honors College who have priority registration? How does that work vis a vis freshman orientation?

I can ask the school on Monday, but I’d like to register for our preferred orientation dates now, if I can.

Thanks!

Dia

[CharlotteLetter]

You can register now and then change the dates on Monday with no fee. I registered for the first session and will probably take time off work for that (depending on my internship dates), but I’m local. Most NM kids I know are registering for the first orientation date, and most OOS students I’ve talked to are registering for the last.

As far as Honors priority registration goes, I believe that only is in effect starting with registration for spring. Per https://honors.unm.edu/academics/registration.html, peer advising is required for early registration, and since the earliest that can happen is at orientation, it wouldn’t help.

Registration is open through the 2nd week of classes, and professors can give overrides for a few weeks past that.

Unfortunately, none of my classes are freshman classes, and they will already be full by even May 30th. If he is registering for regular frosh classes, he should be fine.

[DiotimaDM]

Thanks, @CharlotteLetter. He has all of his core classes done except for one. so I’m not sure he’ll be taking many freshman courses.

[CharlotteLetter]

@DiotimaDM IIRC, Psychology courses, except for 400-level ones, usually fill quickly. I have no idea about theatre. I will hopefully take some business courses, but I’m waiting until spring to start because MGMT 303 fills within the first 2 days of fall registration.

I suspect that for your son (and me), earlier vs later orientation/registering won’t matter much. Almost all of the students taking classes within their majors (i.e. not freshmen) will have registered one month prior to the first orientation date.

[twoinanddone]

You can check with the department to see if they reserve classes for majors too. My daughter (different school) couldn’t go to orientation until almost the last session and we found that her department had reserved all her theater classes. The only negative was that the western civ class they normally steer kids to only had late (on Friday) discussion groups open. Well, we changed her schedule from psychology to English, moved the discussion group to 2 pm (English was at 1 pm) so it worked out pretty well.

Other daughter at an engineering school had her entire schedule handed to her. No choices.

Remember there is always wait listing and begging profs to let you in to a class too.

[WayOutWestMom]

@DiotimaDM

Been too long since one of mine was an undergrad to remember exactly how registration for freshmen works, but I want to warn you that some lab classes (esp Ochem) are impacted and it may be difficult for your son to enroll in required science labs as a freshman. Priority for labs goes to upperclassmen and students who have already completed the lecture portion of the class.

I also wanted to warn you to be careful about trying to use professor overrides to get into filled class sections. UNM has --or at least used to have-- a policy limiting the number of overrides a student could use during undergrad. IIRC, a student had a max of 5 red cards to use during undergrad. Once those were used up, you’re out of luck.

Professors must allow admission into a class with a red card so these are typically used by upperclassmen trying to get their graduation requirements done on time. Red card priority is given to seniors and those close to completing graduation requirements. A red card can bump a lowerclassmen out of class in order to make room for a red card holder.

[DiotimaDM]

His freshman year, he’ll need Physics 151 / 152, and Chem 121 / 122, plus the labs. If he does get the chem classes, it screw up the rest of his whole 4 years because of interlocking pre-reqs later.

The rest of his classes can be moved around between frosh and soph years with not too much of a problem. He has to have those chem classes, though.

[CharlotteLetter]

For spring classes (i.e. Physics 152/L and Chem 122/124L), he should be fine - he’ll be able to use priority registration (register on the first day, along with graduate students) as long as he follows the Honors college rules.

I don’t think he will have an issue getting into the lectures for those classes, as long as he is not picky about his professors. Mark Morgan-Tracy for physics is outstanding.

If he can’t take PHYC 151L in fall, he can take it in spring - 152L does not require 151L as a prerequisite. (I’m not saying this is an awesome idea, just that it’s technically doable.)

Chem 124L has 123L as a prerequisite, so he will need 123L in fall. First-semester physics labs are considered much easier than first-semester chemistry labs, and students probably will drop from both during the first 2 weeks. Many lab classes don’t start until the 2nd week, and I’ve heard of students forgetting to attend in the second week, hence opening slots.

Many freshmen take Gen Chem, so unless you hear different (and great!) news when you call tomorrow, then yes, your S would be getting classes after everyone else, and the labs for that course are difficult to get. Dual credit students also register for classes the day after the last orientation, so if your S makes changes after advisement, classes may be even fuller.

I’ve read a lot of UNM documentation on overrides and cannot find a policy on a limit to the number of overrides a student may receive, so hopefully that policy has changed since @WayOutWestMom had a kid as an undergrad. It’s probably not capped at 5, as my sister who graduated 3 years ago had 7+ Capacity/Closed overrides. As a dual credit student that’s taken (including this semester’s) 13 classes at UNM, I’ve had 4 Capacity/Closed overrides. All 4 times, every student who attended class the first day got into the course. I’ve had 6 other classes where the instructor increased the course capacity significantly to allow all waitlisted students in. (The other 3 classes were French classes, which are not popular enough to fill.) However, overrides and course capacity increases will not help him with labs, as labs have no extra room for students.

[DiotimaDM]

Thanks!

Sorry about the typos in the previous post; the edit timer closed before I saw them.

[DiotimaDM]

We managed to snag a spot in the May orientation. Gonna visit the Grand Canyon on the way home.

[CharlotteLetter]

Nice! I guess I’ll see your S there.

[enginmom4]

My daughter will be going into engineering, so it sounds like registering for classes at orientation may be less important for her b/c of lack of flexibility?

[CharlotteLetter]

@enginmom4 Assuming your daughter isn’t starting off “ahead” in anything, her fall schedule will probably be:

Freshman Composition
Calculus 1
Introduction to whichever type of engineering she’s doing
General Chemistry 1 with Lab
Humanities

unless she’s electrical:

Freshman Composition
Calculus 1
Introduction to Electrical & Computer engineering
General Physics 1 with Lab
Intro to Programming

So her classes will be fairly set, regular frosh courses, and the hardest thing will probably be getting into labs.