Limited Enrollment Courses

Who is this for? 

Curriculum Coordinators, Faculty

Enrollment Capacity and Selection Processes 
Limited enrollment courses are courses that only permit a specified number of students to register. Each limited enrollment course may have a different type of selection process such as a lottery, application review, audition, etc. These courses require instructor consent to prevent “first come, first served” enrollment. Your department’s curriculum coordinator sets the enrollment cap and instructor permission in my.harvard. 

FAS does not offer a centralized selection process for limited enrollment courses. Depts should continue to use their own internal process. 

• Tutorials and 300/3000 courses must require permission of instructor
• Limited enrollment courses must require permission of instructor

Instructor Permission 
Any FAS course may require instructor permission for enrollment. However, courses that limit enrollment must require instruction permission.

• Any instructional staff assigned to a class on the administrative side of my.Harvard can approve petitions, except for undergraduate Course Assistants (CAs). 

 Approving Petitions: If a class is set with instructor permission it must also have at least one instructional or administrative staff member assigned in order to approve petitions during course registration.

Enrollment limits enforced: Enrollment capacities will be enforced, meaning instructors may not admit students past the enrollment limit by simply approving permission to enroll. To manually enroll a student in a closed class, the enrollment cap number must be increased. Or the instructor can elect to offer a waitlist (see below). 

Standard date for lotteries and notifications: There are defined FAS dates for limited enrollment selection processes (lotteries, applications, etc). Students must submit petitions by a specific date. Departments will conduct selection processes for limited enrollment courses by the defined FAS deadline and notify students about placement. Students must claim their seats by a defined deadline. 

General Education, First Year Seminars and Expos Writing Program may have different deadlines for their selection processes. Please consult their websites for dates. 

Waitlists: Instructors may “opt in” to offer a waitlist at the start of Add/Drop period and will end on the last day of the first week of classes (please refer to the academic calendar for dates and deadlines). Students may add themselves to waitlists during add/drop.

Seat Reserves: Instructors may reserve seats in a class for students who meet specific criteria such as incoming (new) students (for the fall) or cross-registrants.

• No Enrollment Caps: Courses that do not have a limit on enrollment. 
• Limited Enrollment Only (no waitlist): Courses that only permit a specified number of students to register. Once the enrollment capacity is met the class is closed. 
• Limited Enrollment with: 
  • waitlist only – A queue of interested students indicate their intent to enroll in a full, closed class, should a seat become available. Once added to waitlist, students automatically come off the waitlist and are enrolled if and when spaces become available. 
  • reserve cap only – A designated number of seats reserved for a specific group of students such as cross-registrants or new incoming students (fall semester). If the reserve cap is 10 for incoming students and the total enrollment is 50, then any 40 students can enroll and the remaining 10 spots will guarantee that 10 incoming students that want to take the course will have a spot. 
  • waitlist and reserve cap – A designated number of seats in a limited enrollment course that gives priority to a certain student group first, and then others on the waitlist. If a seat opens, it will be filled by students meeting the reserve cap criteria first, and then waitlisted students.

Waitlisting is a feature that allows students who are prevented from enrolling in a class without an available seat to be placed in a queue, and automatically enrolled later if a seat becomes available. When one student drops the class, the next available student on the waitlist is placed in that open seat by a program that runs every 15 minutes. Waitlists are not required, instructors must opt-in for waitlists. 

• Waitlisting is only open at the start of Add/Drop period and will end on the last day of the first week of classes (please refer to the academic calendar for dates and deadlines). 
• Waitlists are only available for limited enrollment courses.
• A student must have an approved permission request to join a waitlist.​ 
• Students can waitlist up to 4 courses. 
• Students only come off the waitlist if an enrolled student drops the course or if the class enrollment capacity is increased. 
• If a course does not offer a waitlist, the course will close when full. If a student drops the course, the spot becomes available for other students to enroll.

Please refer to the limited enrollment course guide for additional details on how to set up a waitlist. 

Instructors may set aside seats for students who meet specific criteria such as incoming (new) students or cross-registrants. These are different from waitlists, though the two are very often used together. Department coordinators can request a reserve cap by filling out the eForm in the FAS Curriculum Workcenter. 

• For spring registration, reserve caps are only available for cross-registrants.  ​ 
• For fall reserve caps will be available for incoming (new) students and cross-registrants.  ​ 
• If a student tries to enroll and they do not meet the reserve specifications, they will fill one of the non-reserve seats if there are vacancies. ​ 
• The reserve capacity is not a limit on the number of incoming students who can enroll in the class. It’s a guarantee that a certain number of seats will be available for them. If all 10 reserved seats have been taken and another incoming student tries to enroll, the system will see if there are any unreserved seats and place the student in one of those, if available. ​ 
• There are no reserve caps for discussion sections or labs.​ 

Please refer to the limited enrollment course guide for additional details on how to set up a seat reserve cap.