Winter 2018 Registration Instructions

If you are a Law School student, please read the following instructions prior to registering for Winter 2018 classes (if you are a first-year student, skip to the First-Year Classes section below).

If you are not a Law School student, please see the instructions and submit the Non-Law School Student Registration Request available at http://www.law.uchicago.edu/students/academics/petitions. 

Please note: All times listed below reflect Chicago time.

The registration process comprises several steps:

• Planning
• Bidding/Initial Registration
• Continuing Registration
• Add/Drop Period
  • Withdrawal Period
  • After Classes End

Planning

Please read the Student Handbook sections on planning your Law School education and graduation requirements.

You must enroll for at least nine credit hours each quarter in order to fulfill your degree requirements, be eligible for certain types of financial aid/loans/scholarships/etc., meet particular visa requirements, comply with specific VA guidelines, etc. J.D. and LL.M. students may count non-law school classes towards this quarterly total; however, such classes do not count towards the LL.M. degree, and there are both quarterly and overall limits regarding how many credits derived from such classes may count towards the J.D. degree; see the Student Handbook for details.  Law School classes have a subject code of “LAWS” (e.g., LAWS 40101).  If an offering is cross-listed, you must register in the LAWS-prefixed section.

Please review all available information concerning Winter 2018 offerings.  Some of the many resources available to you include:

• Faculty pages: http://www.law.uchicago.edu/people/faculty
• Course descriptions via Class Search in my.UChicago.
• Meeting times charts: http://www.law.uchicago.edu/students/registrar/courseschedules  
• Exam information: http://www.law.uchicago.edu/academics/examinfo
• Clinical and experiential programs pages: http://www.law.uchicago.edu/clinics
• Taking classes “across the Midway:” http://www.law.uchicago.edu/students/acrossthemidway
• The academic calendar: http://www.law.uchicago.edu/students/academiccalendar
• Class evaluations: https://lawevaluations.uchicago.edu/

You may contact the Dean of Students for additional individual assistance in planning your schedule.

Bidding/Initial Registration

During this period, you may bid for limited enrollment classes and/or register for non-limited enrollment classes.

The maximum number of credits, including credits from preregistrations (see Preregistrations below), non-limited enrollment classes into which you register during this period, and successful bids which result in enrollments at the conclusion of the bidding process, is 14.  The number of successful bids will decrease in inverse proportion to the number of non-limited enrollment classes into which you register.  For example, if you are preregistered in a two-credit clinic in which you are continuing from Autumn 2017 and register for two three-credit non-limited enrollment Autumn classes, the total number of credits from successful bids will not exceed six (which would typically mean two successful bids).

It is up to you to balance these two aspects of the initial bidding/registration period.  While offerings that are not part of the bidding process aren’t expected to run out of seats (hence they are not part of the bidding process) and you may be able to register for them during the Continuing Registration period (see below), there are no guarantees that will be the case for all such offerings.

Bidding

You may bid for up to five offerings, including experiential programs (such as a clinic). 

During this period, you may also register in non-limited classes (see Initial Registration below).

You do not have to bid for classes/clinics in which you are continuing from Autumn 2017.  Students are preregistered into all such continuing classes/clinics prior to the start of the bidding period.

You place your bids online via an easy to use interface, accessed through my.UChicago.  Bidding will open at noon, Monday, November 13 and will remain open for 72 hours, until noon, Thursday, November 16. There is no alternate procedure to place your bids: do not email/fax/mail your bids, as such submissions cannot be accepted.  Late bids cannot be accepted because bids are processed within minutes of the closing of the bidding period, so be sure to give yourself time to complete the bidding process prior to noon on November 16.

If you are unable to access the interface due to a registration hold, please contact the administrative unit that placed the hold.  The Law School Office of the Registrar does not place holds, nor does it have the ability to remove holds placed by other units.  However, if you have questions about the process, the interface, or run into any technical difficulties when placing your bids, we will be glad to assist you.  Please contact us by emailing registrar@law.uchicago.edu.

BIDDABLE CLASS LIST - For a list of offerings included in the bidding, use the search function in my. UChicago, searching for Attribute: “Law School”, Value: “Available for Bidding.”  Carefully review the number of available seats, and any restrictions and preferences listed therein.

To place your bids:

• Have your CNetID and CNet password ready.
• Access my.UChicago and sign in with your CNET ID and password.
• Click on the “Bidding” button, in the “Resources/The Law School” drop down.
• Place your bids in descending order of preference by selecting from the respective dropdown lists (i.e., your top preference should be listed first).
• You may place up to five bids, but you may place fewer bids as well.  You may not bid more than once for any given class.  If you skip a line (e.g., rank bids 1, 3 and 4 only), you may be disadvantaged by the processing algorithm.  You do not receive an advantage if you don’t use all five bids.
• Click the Save button.
• You may then further adjust your bids at any time prior to the closing of the bidding period by clicking the Re-Rank Offerings button.
• Once you are satisfied with your bids, please click the Save button.  At this juncture, you may continue to review your enrollments, review class lists, view course evaluations, and use any of the many other features offered by the interface.  Once you have concluded your session, please click the Log Out link at the lower left of the screen.  You may return to this page to further adjust your bids at any time during the bidding period.

After the Bidding period closes, bids are generally processed as follows:

Your highest bid will be processed first, with all other students’ highest bids. 

If your bid is successful, you will be registered for the class/clinic.  Your bid will succeed if:

• There are more available seats than other bids for the class/clinic; or,
• There were fewer seats than bids and your bid was randomly selected.

If your bid for an oversubscribed class does not result in an enrollment, you will be placed on a waitlist and your next bid will be weighted, allowing for a better chance of success. 

Your second bid will be processed next, and so on, until all your bids have been processed.

Additional factors the algorithm might consider include:

• Year of study (e.g., for classes that give preference to 3L students over 2Ls);
• Reserved Seats (e.g., in a few classes, some seats might be reserved for LL.M. students);
• Preferences (e.g., a student who has not yet had a clinical opportunity shall receive preference with respect to a student who has already participated in one clinic and bids for a different one); and,
• Disqualifying factors (e.g., 3L students who have completed nine Kirkland & Ellis Corporate Lab Clinic credits may not register for additional Kirkland & Ellis Corporate Lab Clinic sections).  

Faculty may choose to alter the priority system for their class based on the particular nature of the class. 

Some offerings will still have seats at the conclusion of the bidding process.  Seats that remain vacant and unallotted will be available on a first-come, first-served basis during the Continuing Registration period.

Successful bids will translate into enrollments.  You will be able to see which bids were successful by checking your schedule under “My Classes” after 5:00 p.m. on Monday, November 20.  If an offering for which you bid doesn’t appear in your schedule, it means you have been waitlisted (or your request was ignored; this happens if a successful bid would put you over 14 credits overall).  Please see the section on Waitlists below for additional details.

Initial Registration

During this period, you may register for non-limited enrollment classes for up to 14 credits. Please keep in mind the advice given under Bidding/Initial Registration about striking the right balance between bids and registration into non-limited enrollment classes.

This process runs contemporaneously with the Bidding period (see above), from noon, Monday, November 13, until noon, Thursday, November 16; registration then closes while bids are processed, reopening for the Continuing Registration period (see below).  There is no alternate procedure to register: do not email/fax/mail requests to be registered, as such submissions cannot be accepted (non-resident dual degree students may email registrar@law.uchicago.edu).

To register for non-limited enrollment classes:

• Have your CNetID and CNet password ready.
• Access Registration via my.UChicago. 
• Sign in with your CNET ID and password.
• Ensure that the Winter 2018 term is selected. 
• Click on My Classes.
• To search for a particular offering, make sure Winter 2018 appears as the Term.  Then type the course name, course number, or instructor name in the search box and click the SEARCH icon. 
• To view all LAWS offerings, click on Law School in the Course Career drop down in the Refine Search box on the left.  You may also search for courses by attributes, or day/time.
• To add a class from the resulting list of offerings, click anywhere on the offering’s information row and then click the Add button.
• To review your current schedule at any time, click on the My Classes link at the top of the page.  From the ensuing page you may drop enrollments by clicking on the Drop button next to the enrollment or you may swap the enrollment with another yet to be selected offering by clicking the Swap button (this comes in handy if you are afraid of dropping an offering before securing a seat in another).
• To end your session and safely exit, please click the Sign Out link at the top right of the screen (in your name drop down).

You may not register for two classes if there is a time conflict with any portion of the class meetings (including pre-scheduled make-up times) or if travel time between classes would make you late for the second class.

Continuing Registration

During Continuing Registration (and the subsequent Add/Drop period) you may register for limited enrollment (Biddable) offerings that didn’t close during the Bidding period, non-limited enrollment offerings, Independent Research projects, classes from other campus units, and otherwise adjust your schedule.  You may access registration via my.UChicago starting at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, November  21 and ending at 5:00 p.m. on Friday, December 15, following the same process outlined above.

During the Continuing Registration period you may continue to be registered for a maximum of 14 credits.    

You may not take more than 14 credits per quarter, under any circumstances.  This rule also applies if you are a dual or joint-degree student not in residency at the Law School for Winter 2018, if you seek to apply any credit(s) earned during Winter 2018 towards the J.D. degree.

Once you have completed your registration, we recommend that you print or otherwise electronically save a copy of the registration page for your records.

Dual- and joint-degree students not in residence at the Law School during this quarter: Your online registration will be through the division in which you are in residence, and in accordance with their registration schedule; the Law School does not require you to petition to take LAWS-prefixed offerings.

You must obtain faculty permission to register for any offering designated as “Instructor Consent Required.”

If a class is designated as “Closed,” it is not available to register for.

As a courtesy to your fellow students, you should promptly drop offerings in which you are no longer interested.

Add/Drop Period

The Online Add/Drop period extends from 9:00 a.m., Tuesday, December 26, until 5:00 p.m., Friday, January 5.

During this period, you may use the Add/Drop function to make changes to your enrollments. 

You are strongly encouraged to finalize your schedule by the end of the first week of classes, if not earlier.

You may drop but not add closed classes. To add a closed class after the quarter begins you must attend the first class meeting, obtain faculty permission, and contact the Office of the Registrar via email. If there remains a waitlist for the class, the faculty may choose to offer available seats according to the order in which students appear on the waitlist.

If you wish to drop a limited enrollment class (any offering included in the Bidding process) you must do so by 12:00 p.m. on Tuesday, January 9. Afterwards, you may only withdraw from such an offering, and you will receive a W mark on your transcript.  The deadline to drop abbreviated classes that conclude prior to the end of the Online Add/Drop Period or start after the end of the Online Add/Drop Period without a “W” is the end of the first day the class meets.

The email-based Instructor Approved Add/Drop period extends from 9:00 a.m., Monday, January 8, until 5:00 p.m., Tuesday, January 16.

During this period, faculty consent is required to add any class. In light of ABA requirements concerning class attendance, faculty generally do not allow students to add a class after the first week.  Consent should be delivered to the Office of the Registrar. If you are forwarding an email from your professor granting you permission to register, be sure to include your full name, student number, class number, and title. Emails lacking this information will be returned. Please use your uchicago.edu email account when emailing us (registrar@law.uchicago.edu).

You may also drop non-limited enrollment classes with faculty consent.  If you are forwarding an email from your professor granting you permission to drop, be sure to include your full name, student ID, class number, and title. Emails lacking this information will be returned.

If you sit for an exam or submit work for an offering in which you were not duly registered, you will receive neither a grade nor credit.  Please be sure to register for all the offerings you will undertake this Winter quarter.

Withdrawals

After 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, January 16, you may not ordinarily add or drop any enrollments. Permission to drop without a mark of W will only be granted under extraordinary and compelling circumstances (e.g., death in the immediate family).

You may withdraw with a mark of W by permission from the faculty and the Dean of Students.  If permission is denied, a grade of 155 (or F for P/F classes) will be recorded on your transcript.  Please see the Student Handbook for further details.

After Classes End

You may neither drop nor withdraw from an offering after 5:00 p.m. on the last day of regularly scheduled classes (or the last day of class meetings for an abbreviated class, whichever comes earlier).  Students who fail to complete their coursework in a timely manner as outlined in the syllabus will receive a failing grade of 155 (or F for P/F classes).

Other Registration Information

Preregistrations

Students are often preregistered for certain classes, clinics, and activities.  If the class or clinic is part of the bidding/initial registration process, preregistered students needn’t bid/register.  Students should review their registrations before and during the bidding/initial registration process.  Some examples are:

• Clinics: Students continuing participation from Autumn quarter (as identified by the supervising faculty; if you are preregistered and shouldn’t be, simply drop the clinic and notify the faculty; if you aren’t preregistered and should be, please notify the faculty).
• Instructor Consent Required Classes/Activities: Workshop: Law and Philosophy, Independent Research projects, and the like.
• Journals: All journal staff are preregistered contemporaneously with their tenure in the journal/law review, for one credit each quarter.  Please see the Student Handbook for additional details.
• 1L Classes: See section on First-Year Required Classes.
• LAWS 70000: All J.S.D. students are preregistered in this class.

Variable-Credit Enrollments

Certain classes and clinics offer variable credit, where credits earned will depend on the nature and amount of coursework/type of assessment.  For example, some classes will award two credits if you take the final exam but three credits if you write a research paper instead, clinics award credits commensurate with the amount of work performed (see the Clinical and Experiential Programs section), independent research credits may range from one to three credits, etc.

By default, initially, you will be typically registered for the minimum credits available.  If you intend to earn a higher (or lower, if not registered for the minimum) number of credits, make certain that you are aware of the requirements for the additional credit(s), and inform both the instructor and the Office of the Registrar of your intentions via email, prior to the end of the Add/Drop Period/ Last Day to Adjust Enrollment/Credits.  Bear in mind the 14 credit per term limit.

Waitlists

If a class fills, a waitlist is established.  Available seats are offered to student(s) on the waitlist according to ranking on the waitlist.  If you are eligible to enroll from a waitlist, you will be notified via email.  You will have 24 hours to reply, confirming your continued interest in the class.  If you don't reply within the stipulated period, the seat will be offered to the student who is next on the waitlist.

Waitlists are provided to faculty prior to the first class meeting.  You should always attend the first meeting of a class in which you are waitlisted, as faculty often admit students from the waitlist at that time.

First-Year Required Classes

First-year students are automatically registered for first-year required classes.

If you are not a first-year student and need/want to take a first-year required class, please note the following:

You may take a first-year required class if:

• You need to repeat a class.
• You transferred into the J.D. program and need to take a first-year required class you didn’t take at your prior school.
• You are an LL.M. or MLS student.

Please note:

• Not all professors allow non first-year students into first-year required classes.  Those who do typically set a cap.
• You may not register online.  Please send an email to the Law School Registrar (registrar@uchicago.edu) requesting the class.
• You may not register in only one quarter of a two-quarter class.  You must register in all quarters.
• Available seats are assigned in the following order:

J.D. Students repeating a class

Transfer J.D. Students

LL.M. and MLS students

• J.D. students are assigned to one of the available sections by the Registrar. Other students are assigned by the Registrar, provided there are available seats. LL.M. students should refer to the pertinent email(s) from Dean Badger concerning additional enrollment procedures/rules for each quarter/class.

Attending the First Class

Regular class attendance is required as a condition for receiving credit.  It is particularly important you attend the first meeting of a class to confirm enrollment.  Many faculty will drop you from the roster if you don’t attend the first meeting; you may not, however, rely on this process as the mechanism to drop classes.  You are responsible for dropping classes in which you no longer intend to be enrolled, or risk receiving a W or 155 (or F for P/F classes) mark on your transcript.

Registration Restrictions

You may not register for classes if you:

• Have registration restrictions placed by any office of the University (such as the Bursar’s Office, the Student Loan Administration Office, etc.); please check my.uchicago.edu.
• Have not satisfied your immunization requirements;
• Have not submitted to the Office of the Registrar an official transcript of undergraduate and/or prior law school work; or
• Fail to confirm your contact information by the University-stipulated deadline.

Confirmation of all enrollments is vested in the faculty.  If you do not meet a class or clinic prerequisite(s) you will be disenrolled.  If you are found to have registered for duplicative coursework (arising from any prior class, at the University of Chicago, or any other institution), you will be disenrolled also.