Editorial: Enrollment times need to be reevaluated

Next quarter’s class schedule was released this week along with the enrollment dates and times for most students.

But again, some first- and second-year students with junior or senior standing are going to have earlier enrollment times than many third- and fourth-year students.

This is because UCLA bases its enrollment on class standing, not expected date of graduation.

Many first- and second-year students come in with a considerable number of units from Advanced Placement tests or community college courses they took while still in high school but they fully intend on graduating in four years rather than sooner.

These are not the students who need earlier enrollment dates if indeed UCLA wants to base its enrollment policy on the idea that people who are graduating sooner have a greater need to take classes related to their major to help them finish their course work on time.

Basing enrollment on expected graduation dates makes the most sense.

For example, a third-year student with senior standing who needs to take a class to finish her major still has another year and a half to take that course.

A fourth-year student with senior standing who also needs to take a class to graduate needs to be guaranteed a better enrollment time than the third-year student with the same class standing.

But that same fourth-year student shouldn’t have a better time than another fourth-year student that intends to graduate in the winter quarter rather than in the spring.

In the current system, all of these students, who have very different enrollment needs, will be placed in the same lottery to determine when they get to enroll.

This is simply unfair and needs to be changed immediately to a system that bases enrollment on expected graduation date rather than the arbitrary “class standing” that in reality does not accurately dictate how close to graduation one might be.

The other silly aspect of the current enrollment process is to whom priority enrollment is distributed: among students in Honors, the Academic Advancement Program, a General Education cluster course, Regents and Alumni Scholars, students with disabilities and athletes.

In other words: half the campus.

Athletes have a real need for priority enrollment because they have hectic practice and travel schedules.

Students with disabilities have a need for priority enrollment because they have demanding and unique medical conditions.

What possible needs do Regents and Alumni Scholars, Honors and AAP students have for priority?

Why do students in a GE cluster need priority?

The answer to those rhetorical questions is that they do not.

Providing priority enrollment as a perk to special honors and scholarship students may help recruitment for those programs, but those students already receive scholarship money and a special diploma. They don’t need a better enrollment time.

And the worst thing about granting basically everyone priority is that it no longer works for those who need it.

There are only a limited number of spaces in classes allotted to priority, and with everyone able to enroll early, those that need it the most, like students with disabilities, probably get the shaft.

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