The recently updated Add/Drop slips were available until March 31.
This term, students saw some changes to the Add/Drop process. In an email to the student body, Catherine Tousignant, Associate Dean of Studies for Advising, acknowledged that many students had their schedules floated, highlighting the necessity of moving some schedules to best accommodate course requests. Additionally, new add-drop slips were debuted, and some class section sizes were increased.
There have been some reports of larger class sizes, especially in humanities courses. Mika Latva-Kokko, Assistant Dean of Studies for Scheduling, explained the two reasons behind increased class sizes.
“First, HSS515 was cancelled last minute, putting pressure on HSS5xx and PHR5xx electives. Teachers and department chairs were nice enough to allow over-enrollment in some classes. Second, multiple department chairs have allowed students to move back to their original sections for teacher continuity, which has resulted in some of them being over-enrolled,” wrote Latva-Kokko in an email to The Phillipian.
Although the scheduling process remains the same from other terms, Tousignant shared that schedules can be moved around due to various reasons. Additionally, she explained that the Dean of Studies Office redesigned the add-drop slips to ensure students were properly filling out all required fields and thinking about diploma requirements.
“Teachers go on leave or sabbatical, departments shuffle schedules around, departments eliminate or merge sections, and other students need single-section courses to graduate, which can only be scheduled if we move students around, balancing section sizes for reasons of equity. [Also] Students were not filling [the add-drop slips] correctly or completely. The new ones explicitly ask students to answer all the questions we need information about,” wrote Tousignant in an email to The Phillipian.
Some students have had their schedules moved around in ways they feel were unnecessary. Jack Gallagher ’27, who requested classes fitting into his free period, explained how his placement in a religion and philosophy class resulted in his schedule being changed around.
“I asked for [Religion and Philosophy] seventh period, and I had seventh free, but instead they decided to swap my chemistry to my seventh, for some reason, and put my Rel-Phil in fifth. I told my Rel-Phil teacher later that I was planning on swapping around my schedule and I asked her if her seventh period class was open, and she said yes, and there were spots in it. I was confused as to why I was moved to her fifth period class, and not just put in her seventh period class like I requested,” said Gallagher.
On the other hand, even if having new teachers can sound intimidating, it is also an opportunity to meet new people on campus. Jeannie Kang ’28 was given two new classes, resulting in schedule changes. Specifically, her BIO100 period and teacher were different. Kang mentioned how having a new teacher was a big adjustment, but could also be beneficial in certain ways.
“Everyone or most people want the same teacher throughout all three terms, just because you can build a better relationship. You’re also more capable of getting either a good grade or doing well in that class with the same teacher because you can learn about them better. As I got switched around, it was a little problem when I got a new teacher, and I was a little freaked out about that, but then it worked out all right. The pro of that is you get to meet more teachers and that’s a good thing, in any way,” said Kang.
Some students in the CHM630 Organic Chemistry lab course were initially told that they were allowed into the course, but subsequently informed by the chemistry department that there was an error and they would have to drop it. Latva-Kokko noted that this was a once-off miscommunication. Wooba Song ’26 explained his thoughts on the experience, noting that although he was initially disappointed, he currently views the situation more positively.
“At first, I was a bit sad because I was looking forward to [the organic chemistry lab course] the whole year, but I switched into the physics I was going to take next year, Modern Physics, which has been pretty fun. I guess it’s maybe a blessing in disguise. I’ve also heard that the chemistry course will be better next year, so that’s something to look forward to for my senior spring,” said Song.
