Nearly 900 students woke up on the first day of classes to see
that their entire schedule had been dropped because of a computer
glitch.
The registrar’s office is fixing the problem, and all of
the affected students should have been re-enrolled in their classes
by Monday night, said Associate Registrar Anita Cotter.
“Those students who were dropped in error will be
reinstated in the classes they were enrolled in Friday
night,” Cotter said.
Only students who paid their BAR by credit card between 3 p.m.
last Thursday and 2:45 p.m. last Friday will be re-enrolled.
All payments in this time period were included in one file,
which was not processed correctly through UCLA’s
administration.
As a result, the registrar’s office was incorrectly told
that these 890 students did not pay their fees. James Hardy, a
first-year history student, paid on Thursday, but checked back a
few days later and found that his schedule had disappeared.
“I was panicking,” he said.
The official deadline for all BAR payments is the 20th of every
month. The extra time between deadlines ensures that cashiers have
enough time to process payments before students’ classes are
dropped.
Jeff Brigman, student accounting database manager, said that
UCLA’s Administrative Information Services department did not
correctly pull a daily electronic file indicating which students
had paid their fees.
“There’s not much we can do to prevent this from
happening again,” Brigman said. “But I would hope they
(AIS) are really sensitive to this and will make sure this
doesn’t happen again.”
Officials from AIS declined to comment while they’re still
investigating the problem.
Both Brigman and Cotter said there has never been an accounting
problem on this scale before.
All students were notified of the problem today through MyUCLA,
regardless of whether or not they were affected.
“That was the quickest way to contact people this
morning,” Cotter said.
No one in UCLA’s administration discovered the problem
before Monday morning.
Given the scope, “a fair number” of people have come
to the registrar’s office to complain, Cotter said.
Kevin Graham-Caso, a first-year history student, received an
e-mail Thursday instructing him to pay his fees or his classes
would be dropped Friday. He immediately paid the balance with a
credit card. But by Saturday, he said, his classes had been dropped
anyway.
“I was panicked at first, wondering if something
didn’t go through; all my classes were already wait-listed or
closed,” he said.
Students have been advised to stay calm and check their schedule
and BAR account on URSA today, and come back if there are any
problems.
If a student was dropped while they were on the wait list, they
will be placed back on the wait list in the same position they held
before. In situations where students took advantage of the drops to
add classes with apparent vacancies, the registrar will recognize
their enrollment.
Consequently, some classes will be over-enrolled ““
evidence of which could already be seen Monday evening. Departments
have been notified, but Cotter said she is unsure what effects the
over-enrollment could have over the quarter.
With reports from Shaun Bishop, Daily Bruin Contributor.