UC Berkeley - Class of 2022 Applicants Thread

ElenaParent
Mon, 16 Jul 2018 11:26:49 +0000

@LeftyRighty16 I am a bit anxious as well. My son is eligible to skip everything including MATH 53 and 54, and go for 55 and upper division. So, to relieve my anxiety (only mine - he is not anxious at all!), I contacted MATH department directly. They told me - simply enroll into the next MATH class you have to take. In the case of my son it is MATH 55. In your case it may be MATH 54. I suggest you call the Undergraduate Adviser at Math department. There are two of them, you can find their contact info on the web page of math department. They will tell you straight. They are very friendly and knowledgeable. And they do answer the phone )which may not be necessarily true for general advisers responsible for a wide audience in L&S).

Regardless, it is my understanding that the prerequisites are not enforced at the time of registration, not automatically at least. I do not have any proof of that, just several observations. (1) I did not hear anywhere in the Golden Bear Advisement videos a warning that the System will not allow you to register for a course, if you do not have prerequisites formally listed in your CalCentral, only suggestions not to register for advanced courses. (2) The Golden Bear Adviser (L&S) my son had never mentioned that he may not be able to register for his two Upper Division courses that he is aiming at, due to lack of prerequisites. (3) Undergraduate Adviser in MATH department said that the only “hold” the incoming students might have is if they did not go through Golden Bear Advisement. (4) The same Math Department Adviser told my son - “just go ahead and register”, without saying “I cleared the permission for you” or anything of the sort. (5) My son got another advice from a LATIN professor. He is aiming at a LATIN course with prerequisites which he formally doesn’t have, but he has a lot of other experience in Latin instead. It is clear that the “System” (CalCentral) doesn’t know, and cannot know, of my son’s other credentials in Latin. However, the professor (my son wrote him an e-mail asking for permission to enroll) said, “just enroll, I am looking forward to working with you”, again without saying that he will clear the prerequisite hold or anything like that.

I guess it is assumed that people “just enroll,” and then if the course is not what they “signed up for” - they either drop it themselves, or the professor drops them. In fact, if it is indeed like this, - then the system would make a lot of sense to me. We will see whether I am right day after tomorrow, when my son actually clicks “enroll” button…