During Add/Drop period, Add/Drop slips can be seen in the hands of most students.
Students submitted almost 600 Add/Drop slips to the Dean of Studies office during this year’s Add/Drop period, which lasted three days rather than the usual five. The Scheduling Office has also undergone a staffing change, with Mika Latva-Kokko, Instructor in Physics, acting as the new Director of the Scheduling Office. Julie Powers, Catherine Tousignant, Cindy Stuart, Caroline Odden, and John Wilson also comprise the team responsible for delegating the Add/Drop process.
During this year’s Add/Drop period, several Seniors reported an increased number of Uppers in traditionally Senior-only electives. However, the Scheduling Office did not provide any data to support this. Alex Giarnese ’25, who was unsuccessful in getting Physics 440 (Astronomy), a high-demand Physics elective, spoke about the importance of seniority in choosing classes.
“As far as Uppers being in electives goes, I’m glad that there are students being able to take the classes that they want to take, but I do think that seniority as a Senior is very, very important, because we have waited so long to take these classes, and it’s really disheartening to hear me and my friends who are not in the classes we want to take being replaced by Uppers who will have this chance for three terms next year,” said Giarnese.
Other Seniors in high-demand electives such as Art 600 and Math 440 (Financial Literacy) mentioned a higher number of Uppers as well. Matteo Horvat ’25 was not initially assigned Art 600, but managed to secure a spot in the class during the Add/Drop period.
“[In 2023] the class was entirely Seniors, except for one student. And then this year I didn’t have it on my schedule, which was pretty surprising. [Art 600] was also what I had marked in my request as my emphasis, the thing I wanted most out of anything… I’ve taken an art class every single year of all five years in high school. I was really, really excited to be in this higher level class, and not getting that at first is super disappointing, and it definitely sucks,” said Horvat.
The current software for the scheduling system is over 10 years old. Latva-kokko addressed the system’s flaws, mentioning how it could result in certain students being placed in high-demand classes before others even if they hadn’t marked it as a priority.
“The software, when it schedules students, doesn’t always put you in your first choice class. For example, say your friend asked for Economics as their first choice and you ask for Economics as your second choice. If you happen to be higher in the random list of students that get scheduled, you might get into HSS501 if at your time there’s still room. But when [your friend] comes later on… there isn’t room. That’s one of those things that I feel like I don’t know if I fully agree with how the software runs that process. I might do it differently myself,” said Latva-kokko.
Reflecting upon the various changes to this year’s process, Giarnese talked about increased transparency between students and scheduling officers. He expressed the difficulty of properly conveying one’s circumstances in just a few sentences.
“Extending the Add/Drop period and allowing for more conversations between students and whoever handles the scheduling, because it’s really hard to get meetings with them, and really hard to explain yourself on the Add/Drop forms, which don’t give you the opportunities to tell the office why these classes are so important for you to take. A big improvement would either be adding that or just improving opportunities for students to meet with the [Dean of Studies] and explain why they want to be taking these classes,” said Giarnese.
Despite the difficulties of scheduling, Horvat pointed out how he was able to scour the Course of Studies during his search for a replacement for ART600. He emphasized Andover’s wealth of unique courses and encouraged students to explore them.
“I actually got put into an English class when I didn’t get [ART600] called ‘The Artist and The Dictator,’ which seemed awesome and the teacher seemed really great. It was just a moment where I realized, ‘oh, I didn’t get the thing I wanted, but I’ve now actually ended up somewhere really cool by accident.’ If you are really, really careful at looking at the course of studies and keeping an open mind, you will find something just as cool that you might not even realize you were interested in. So definitely stay grounded…there’s so many cool things here. We shouldn’t forget that,” said Horvat.
A computerized system assigns initial course requests, with older class years receiving algorithmic priority: All seniors are put in a randomized list, and assigned classes one-by-one. For example, a Senior in position #200 would not have any classes assigned until seniors #1-199 had already been assigned full schedules. Additionally, the system makes no distinction between historically high-demand courses and low-demand courses when resolving scheduling conflicts that arise when a student requests two classes that occur during the same period. Unless an explicit note to the scheduling officer is included, the computer will resolve such conflicts on a random basis.
For Add/Drop requests, there is no difference between submitting a slip in the morning or in the afternoon, as long as the slip is submitted on the same day. All paper data is transferred to an Excel spreadsheet at the end of each day, which is then randomized. Priority is given in the following order: Seniors from Monday, then Tuesday, then Wednesday, Uppers from Monday, etc.
