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Haverford College

Office of the Registrar

Lottery Guidelines

The Faculty has approved the following lottery guidelines for entering limited-enrollment courses at Haverford, effective immediately.

  1. If a student is interested in any limited-enrollment class, he or she must indicate such interest by registering for the class by the deadline established in the College Catalog. Students who do not register for limited-enrollment classes will not be included in the lottery, which the Registrar will run immediately following the registration deadline. The Registrar will post lottery results on his website thereafter.
  2. Students may ask the Registrar, in person, for preferential treatment in a lottery for a limited enrollment course they have previously failed to get into, but they must do so before the Registrar runs course lotteries. A student may ask for preferential treatment in cases in which he or she has (a) tried once to get into a course that is offered only every other year or (b) tried twice to get into a course that meets every year. Study abroad students may request this via email but must do so before lotteries are run, which will be immediately after registration.
  3. If a student is lotteried into a class, he or she must attend the first meeting of the class and indicate to the Professor (typically by signing an attendance sheet) that he or she is interested in taking the course. If a student does not attend the first meeting of a limited-enrollment class and all meetings through the end of course drop/add period (i.e., the “academic verification” deadline) and does not apprise the instructor in a timely fashion of the reasons for this absence, his or her position will be given to the next person eligible on the waitlist.
  4. When an enrollment limit is approved by the Educational Policy Committee, EPC may authorize preference based on any of the following, as indicated in the Course Guide:
      • Specific Major(s)
      • Specific Class Year(s)
      • Specific Class Year with specific Major(s)
      • Specific Minor(s)
      • Specific Concentration(s)

    Lotteries defined by any other preference will require the specific approval of EPC, in consultation with the Registrar; in instances in which a Faculty member wants to employ preferences other than those specified above, and the Registrar's data management system cannot accommodate those preferences, it may be necessary for the Faculty member to conduct the lottery himself or herself.

  5. For all lower-division courses (100 level and some 200 level courses without prerequisites), a number of spots, to be determined by the Registrar in consultation with the relevant departments, will be reserved in the April registration for members of the incoming freshman class.
  6. For all upper-division courses (300 level and above), unless the instructor requests otherwise, preference will be given by class: Seniors first, then Juniors, and so on.
  7. Students currently on campus who expect to be at Haverford the following semester/year, must register for the following semester. This includes also those studying abroad, who can either register via the web or send their course selections via email to the Registrar, who will register for them. Any student who fails to register by the appointed deadline will be excluded from all lotteries.
  8. Faculty Members will not ask the Registrar to place particular students in their classes or to employ criteria in carrying out lotteries other than those approved by EPC and advertised in the annual Course Guide.

For Courses at Swarthmore and the University of Pennsylvania

To register for a course at either institution, you must do so IN PERSON, in the Haverford Registrar's Office with a special form; Registration at Swarthmore/University of Pennsylvania PDF (Requires Acrobat Reader 5.0 or higher).

Complete the form, print it, have it signed/approved by your Advisor, and bring it to the Registrar’s Office in order to register for the appropriate course(s). Keep in mind that registration for courses at Swarthmore will not be complete until you have also registered in person at Swarthmore only.

SWARTHMORE - you may add Swarthmore courses at Swarthmore in the Swarthmore's Registrar's Office - TBA.

PENN – you may enroll for courses at Penn in the Haverford Registrar's Office following the same dates as you would for Haverford/Bryn Mawr courses but only AFTER you have obtained written permission from both your Advisor and the Haverford Registrar. PLEASE READ "THE QUAKER CONSORTIUM RECIPROCAL PROGRAM GUIDELINES UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA" PDF and follow explicitly for permission to be granted. Link to University of Pennsylvania registration procedures: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/cgs/reciprocal/

View your current schedule, that is, the courses you registered for. Once you open and view this page, a link is provided for you to click and go directly to on-line registration/verification, which you must complete and submit to your advisor. Please do not hesitate to come to the registrar's office for assistance with any of this should that be necessary.