Registration FAQs

There are two ways to find out:

• Look at the list of Registration Priority Times organized by class year and last name.
• From the Academics and Registration app in Workday, the My Registration Appointments box lists your priority time for registration. See our guide View My Registration Appointment for more information.

For general registration dates, see the Academic Calendar.

Instead of Seniors first, then Juniors, and so on, these courses follow a different order: Sophomores, first-year students, Seniors, Juniors. Sophomores and first-years register for these as normal (and if it is full, waitlist it as normal). However, if you will be a Junior or Senior during the term you are registering for and wish to register for a Sophomore priority course, once you register for the course you will be automatically waitlisted for it, and will be admitted at the instructor’s discretion after priority registration has ended. This also applies to a Senior, Junior, or Sophomore wishing to register for a first-year priority course.

For most courses, you can add and drop classes until 11:59 p.m. the Sunday following the first day of classes (if the class begins on a Monday. Otherwise, this period ends at 11:59 p.m. on the fifth day of classes). See the Academic Calendar for specific deadlines.

Don’t wait for the deadline! Make changes sooner rather than later to ensure you make it onto class lists.

For courses with waitlists, register for the course as you would any other course. If a space opens up during the priority registration window you will be sent an invitation to register through Workday. You have 24 hours to respond to the invitation. The Monday after priority registration ends, the Registrar’s Office will begin taking requests from instructors to register students for their classes. The Registrar’s Office will manually register students for courses once a request is received from an instructor. Students will receive an email outside of Workday once they have been manually registered for a class. Students have 48 hours to resolve any schedule conflicts with their registration. After 48 hours if conflicts have not been resolved and the student has NOT been in contact with the Registrar’s Office, the Registrar’s Office will undo the registration. See our guide How Waitlists Work at Carleton for more information. Further details on the drop/add process can be found in the Academic Regulations & Procedures.

No, the registration system will not allow you to register for two courses with time conflicts. You will need permission from the instructors to do that. Visit the Registrar’s Office to discuss how you’ll get those permissions and to obtain the appropriate registration card.

Students may declare up to six credits per term (and up to 30 in your time at Carleton) as elective S/Cr/NC [Satisfactory/Credit/No-Credit] by completing and submitting a S/Cr/NC form. The six credits per term does not include courses offered only on a S/Cr/NC basis.

The form requires both the student’s and the instructor’s approval and must be submitted by 5:00 p.m. on:

• the seventh Friday of the term for ten-week courses, 
• the third Friday of the term for first five-week courses, or 
• the eighth Friday of the term for second five-week courses. 

See the Handbook for more details.

We expect students to do what they can to register online.

However, if you are a student that is off-campus that does not have internet access during registration, you can elect to have the Registrar’s Office to act as a proxy and register you via the electronic Proxy Registration Form.

Your adviser must also grant approval to signify that a conversation has taken place regarding course selection for the upcoming term. Once you and your adviser sign off on the form, it will reach the Registrar’s Office.

The Registrar’s Office will process the forms during the normal business hours (8:00am-5:00pm) following the student’s registration priority time.  The Registrar’s Office will also accept proxy registration forms submitted after the student’s priority time through 4:00pm of the last day of classes of the term preceding the term of registration.

Submit your completed independent study forms to the Registrar’s Office during normal business hours. Course numbers 290/390, 291/391, and 292/392 for all subjects, as well as BIOL 394, CHEM 394, PHYS/ASTR 356 and PSYC 300, are all considered independent study courses.

Note that some departments, such as Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Astronomy, Political Science and Psychology provide their own forms, which are available on their respective department pages. Registration and drop/add deadlines pertain to independent study.

Call the ITS Help Desk at 507-222-5999. You can also register in one of the public computer labs on the first floor of CMC during that time frame – Help Desk staff will be ready to assist you as needed. You can also call the Registrar’s Staff during that time at 507-222-4288. Should general system failure stop your class from registering, you will receive an email from the Registrar providing further information about how to proceed.

You can waitlist it,  following the same procedure that you would to register for a class. See our guide Register or Waitlist for a Course Directly from the Course Listing for more information.. You can drop yourself from a waitlist by dropping the waitlisted course. See our guide Drop or ‘Late’ Drop from a Class for more information.. You may waitlist for a course which conflicts with a registered course. You are not allowed to waitlist for multiple sections of a course or for another section of a course in which you are enrolled.

If you have waitlisted for a course, we encourage you to contact the instructor immediately to signal the level of your interest and to attend the first meeting of this class.

If a space opens up during the priority registration window you will be sent an invitation to register through Workday. You have 24 hours to respond to the invitation. 

The Monday after priority registration ends, the Registrar’s Office will begin taking requests from instructors to register students for their classes. The Registrar’s Office will manually register students for courses once a request is received from an instructor. Students will receive an email outside of Workday once they have been manually registered for a class. Students have 48 hours to resolve any schedule conflicts with their registration. After 48 hours if conflicts have not been resolved and the student has NOT been in contact with the Registrar’s Office, the Registrar’s Office will undo the registration. 

Check your Workday notifications and email regularly.

See our guide How Waitlists Work at Carleton for more information.

If you do not meet the minimum requirements for a class you can use the Request Course Section Prerequisite Override function in Workday to ask permission to enroll in the course. The class instructor can approve or deny the override request. See our guide Request Prerequisite Override for more information.

Carleton will allow you to audit under certain circumstances, but does not post audits to your transcript. Any arrangement to audit a course is between you and the instructor.

Non-degree students may only take courses at Carleton under very particular circumstances, and our policy on special students clarifies who can and cannot qualify. Register through the Special Student Registration Form, which includes additional information and instructions.

Special requests such as double majors, self-designed majors, overloading, taking overlapping classes, etc. are handled on a case-by-case basis by the Academic Standing Committee. You will need to fill out the petition form, obtain the necessary signatures, and submit the form to the Registrar’s Office in a timely manner for your request to be considered. Contact Theresa Rodriguez with any questions.

As a full-time student, you can take between 12 and 22 credits per term. If you want to take more than 22 credits, you will need to petition the Academic Standing Committee for approval. Petition forms are available on the Registrar’s website or at our office.

Degree-seeking students may take up to one course a term at St. Olaf through the Inter-Registration agreement. Please consult the Inter-Registration policies and submit the appropriate form to the Carleton Registrar’s Office.