How to Enroll in Classes

Reduced course loads must be approved by the dean's office of your college or school. If you are an undergraduate and anticipate being enrolled in fewer than the minimum number of units required by your college or school, contact your dean's office as soon as possible to request approval to be enrolled in a less-than-full course load. Requests should be submitted before the end of the previous semester to have time for review. A reduced course load must be approved by the dean of your college or school before the end of your Phase II enrollment period.

The search feature was released in October 2019 with a nine-major pilot that has since expanded to 18 majors in total. These majors account for nearly 50% of all declared students. The Search by Major Requirements feature will expand each semester to include more majors and provide undergraduates with a unique tool for exploring the classes they need to complete their degrees.

See the Class Schedule FAQs for answers to additional questions including:

• Where information from the Class Schedule is sourced
• How long it takes the Class Schedule to display data

If you want to enroll in (add) a class, keep in mind:

• Departments may reserve seats in classes for students who meet certain criteria, based on major, level, etc. These classes are indicated in the Berkeley Guide Class Schedule and CalCentral.
• If you qualify for a seat reservation category but it is full, you will receive the message: "The enrollment category for which you qualify is full."
• If you attempt to add a course and you do not meet the restrictions, you will not be allowed to enroll, and you will receive the message, "You have not met the enrollment restrictions (or criteria) for this class," or "Students at your course level are not permitted to enroll in this class."

Visit this site for Enrollment FAQs.

If you attempt to enroll in classes with overlapping days/times, you will only be able to do so if at least one of the conflicting classes is set up to allow time overlaps with other classes. You must click YES after you receive the error message “A scheduling conflict exists, please press 'yes' to accept and continue."
If both conflicting classes are not set up for students to enroll in classes with time conflicts, you will be unable to enroll in both classes while the times conflict. You must choose one or the other or find alternatives that allow time conflicts or do not conflict.

To drop an enrolled or waitlisted class, go to your current class schedule and select the class you wish to drop. You must confirm the transaction before the class will be dropped from your schedule. Please be aware some courses have early drop deadlines (EDD). Check your college/school's website for more information.

Students are allowed to drop below full-time units until the end of the fourth week of instruction. Students will be charged a $10 late fee for each class dropped after the end of the second Friday of instruction.

If you do not plan to attend/enroll for the semester, you will not be able to drop your last class. You must submit a withdrawal form on CalCentral > My Dashboard > Add a Withdrawal Request.

If you are not enrolled in any classes by the deadline (below), you will need approval to enroll in any class.

Undergraduate Enrollment Deadline

If you are an undergraduate student and you have not enrolled in classes by the end of the fourth Wednesday of instruction (11:59 p.m. PST), you must obtain approval from an adviser in your college or school in order to enroll.

Graduates Enrollment Deadline

If you are a graduate student and you have not enrolled in classes by the end of the fifth Friday of instruction (11:59 p.m. PST), you must reach out to your Graduate Student Affairs Officer (GSAO) to submit a re-enrollment request on your behalf.

Each school or college has its own policies and procedures regarding student requests for exceptions to add or drop a class after the add/drop deadline. Please see your college adviser if you have questions.

Add and drop deadlines are set by the colleges and approved by the Council of Undergraduate Deans, the body where the undergraduate colleges convene to make collective decisions. All of the undergraduate colleges have a stake in consistent deadlines, because students from every college take courses in every other college.

If you are unable to enroll in a class because it is full, there are two ways you may be added to a waitlist: automatic or manual. You can find the waitlist options in CalCentral.

1) Automatic. You can place yourself on the class's waitlist in CalCentral. Automatic wait lists are processed every three hours through the end of the third week of instruction. Students on automatic waitlists are enrolled sequentially, provided there are seats available for their enrollment group.

Note: If you are already enrolled in a class that conflicts with the scheduling of a class you are waitlisted for, it is considered a time conflict. You will not be automatically enrolled from a wait list if there is a time conflict in your schedule and both classes do not allow time conflicts.

2) Manual. An instructor or department can change a waitlist from automatic to manual (or vice versa) at any time. An instructor/department also can selectively choose to add students from a waitlist and may not adhere to the sequential order of students on the waitlist. (Students added this way are not charged a $5 add fee.) Departments may enroll students from a manual waitlist beginning the first day of Phase I through the end of the fourth week of instruction.

Waitlisted students usually receive first priority for enrollment. However, there is no guarantee that you will be enrolled in the course. Being enrolled from a wait list depends on a number of factors, such as whether the list is "automatic" or "manual," your position on the list, the size of the course, and whether enough space becomes available (through drops or an increase in seats).

Units for waitlisted courses are counted as part of your unit total. You need to be actually enrolled (i.e., not on the waitlist) in at least one course to be considered officially "registered" (in addition to having paid at least 20 percent of your registration fees and having no registration holds).

If you are waitlisted for a class, be proactive about committing to or dropping the class. Waitlisted students who want to get into the class will want to check in with the instructor or GSI to see if they want waitlisted students to attend or not, and if they do, then definitely attend and keep up on the work.
If you no longer wish to take a waitlisted course, you are responsible for dropping yourself from the waitlist, preferably by the end of the second week of instruction.

• Be sure to drop yourself from the waitlist before the add-drop deadline.
• If you have already been enrolled from a waitlist, you are responsible for dropping the class.
• Enrollment managers add students from waitlists on Thursday and Friday of week four of the semester. If you are added into a class on these days it will be too late to drop it.

Be sure to do all the homework. If you are having trouble with homework or understanding lectures and class concepts, try attending office hours. If you continue to have trouble with material even after discussing it with your professor or graduate student instructor, this could be an indication that the class is not right for you.

You should always drop any unwanted classes from your schedule immediately. Don't wait for or assume an instructor will drop you from a class.

However, an instructor may drop you from a class if you do not attend every class meeting during the first three weeks of instruction or if you do not meet the prerequisites.