Waitlist Reordering Criteria

CEP, the Curriculum and Educational Policy Committee, with advice from the Workday Student Transition Committee, offers the following criteria/comments as suggested guidelines to assist faculty who opt to reorder their waitlists.

In Workday, students may waitlist themselves to appropriate classes during the initial weeks of registration. Once all registration groups have had a chance to register for classes, registration will close for a brief period during which faculty will be able to reorder their waitlists by completing the online Waitlist Reorder Form. For spring 2026, this form will be available November 17 - December 1, 2025.

The Registrar's Office will post these reordered waitlists to Workday and registration will reopen. Students will be able to see their new position on the reordered waitlists, but not the names of the other students on the list.

The purpose of this criteria is 1) to offer faculty guidance for reordering their waitlists in an equitable and transparent fashion and 2) to make clear to students why their waitlisting position may have changed.

Criteria for reordering waitlists

Class Audience

What is the primary audience of this class? For example, is it geared towards first and second years? Majors? Students in need of a particular distribution requirement?

Major/Minor Requirement

Does the student need the course for their major/minor?

How to use the criteria

The circumstances surrounding any given course will vary. Faculty can apply the criterion which seem to best fit the course in question.

Illegitimate Criteria

Waitlists should not be reordered simply to shift class demographics (e.g., putting women, because they are women, at the top of a waitlist for a course with mostly men in it). Among many attendant problems, there is the simple fact that this is illegal under federal law. Please note, there may be other entirely legitimate reasons for that, for example, all women would be moved to the top of the waitlist (e.g., they are seniors who need the course to graduate).

Overenrolling

Faculty who over-enroll their classes should do so according to the order of their waitlist and may do so by submitting an online request form that will be available in August and processed closer to the first day of classes.