The University of Texas at Austin is changing its registration system beginning in April for summer and fall courses.
“The new process will determine your registration access time by your progress toward degree completion,” said David Laude, senior vice provost for enrollment and graduation management. “The closer you are to completing your degree, the earlier will be your access period.”
Laude said the reason behind the change is to allow for those closest to graduation to receive higher registration priority rather than those students who have a higher classification because of college credit earned prior to attending college.
The previous system based registration access times on a student’s last name and classification as freshman, sophomore, junior, senior or graduate.
“What has happened over time is that the whole process of describing somebody as a senior or a junior or a sophomore has gotten all screwed up because of the ways students earn semester credit hours now,” said Laude.
According to Laude, currently half of UT students register as if they are seniors, but only a fourth of UT students have standing to suggest they will graduate within a year.
Jared Wynne, a journalism major graduating fall 2014, likes the new registration because it will give him better priority.
“I’m planning to graduate fall ’14, which means I have very specific class needs,” said Wynne. “The new registration process should better allow me to see about that."
Under this new system, Wynne should be one of the first to register because he is so close to completing his degree.
Wynne said registration has been hard in the past because his last name begins with a W, and that would cause him to have a later registration time within his class year.
However, this is a misconception among many students. In the previous system, each classification would have two days of registration, and the times slotted rotated each semester by last name.
For fall 2013 registration, seniors whose last name began with T registered the first day at 8 a.m., but in spring 2013 registration, they were the last group of seniors to register.
Unlike Wynne, not everyone will benefit with the changes to registration access times.
Zack Gonzalez, a second year biology major at UT, hopes to switch into sports management. He does not like the changes because it will make registering for classes more difficult since he is changing majors.
“On top of being behind now, I’m going to have to fight registration even more,” said Gonzalez. “And I’m definitely not looking forward to that.”
He said his degree completion percentage is low because the classes related to biology are now going to be counted toward electives instead of his new degree.
Mandy Mullarkey, a third year radio-television-film major who transferred from Baylor University, also does not like the new changes.
“I have many credits that counted toward my film degree or just general degree there that have no relevance in my current degree plan,” said Mullarkey. “Even though I have many extra hours of a college education, the new rules act against me.”
Mullarkey is also working on her business foundations certificate, which does not count toward any degree plan. These and her extra hours from Baylor University do not help her degree plan, and will place her further back for registration time.
Although he has heard concerns, Laude said most of the input he received has been enthusiastic and he is looking forward to the registration change bringing excitement to the student’s final year of college.
“One of the things I think we’ve lost at the University of Texas is a sense of what that graduation year is like,” said Laude.
He said students don’t register to graduate until several weeks before the end of their final semester, and changing the registration would allow students to know when they should graduate sooner.
“Imagine students are registering to graduate a full year in advance, and in so doing, triggering people knowing that they are about to be a graduating senior.”
Laude said he is confident the new system, to begin April 14, will work because the registrar’s office has been able to run simulations on how registration will unfold.
“We have a very good idea heading into this of how exactly it’s going to turn out,” said Laude. “And we’re confident that it’s going to work the way we want to.”