The Academic Life Office has adjusted its waitlist system for the 2024-2025 school year in an attempt to distribute preferred classes more equitably among students.
This year, the school is offering 286 unique courses. “When deciding what courses to offer, we consider what has been popular in the past. We also want our curriculum to be dynamic and responsive to the times,” said Mr. Richard Davis, dean of academic life.
The Record sent out a survey in October to Upper Mids and Seniors to gather data about their experiences with waitlists and course enrollment; 60 students responded. Approximately 68% of those surveyed were placed on waitlists this fall for classes in which they wanted to enroll.
In July, the Academic office begins building student schedules using an algorithm that works to eliminate conflicts. “When you add up every student and every class, you get around 4,500 class enrollments you’re trying to fit into seven blocks, about 50 classrooms, and match with 100 full-time teachers,” said Mr. Davis.
Prior to this year, the Academic Office gave Seniors priority in electives. It first enrolled Seniors in electives by random lottery; then, Upper Mids were given slots using the same system. Mr. Davis, Mrs. Kristy Doscher, associate dean of academic life, and Ms. Heather Mechare, registrar, then work with each student’s schedule individually to eliminate conflicts and assign classes.
Mr. Davis said, “Before this year, every student interested had an equal shot at getting into each class. But the downside was that we had some students who were more lucky than others. Some students got all four classes they wanted; other students got none.”
This year, Dr. Matthias Weiss, director of scheduling, created an additional script for running the lotteries. “The script now keeps running all lotteries until the number of students on multiple waitlists is as small as it can possibly be,” said Mr. Davis.
As a result of this new process, over 65% of the students surveyed by The Record were placed in their first or second choice elective. “We did our absolute best to give more students most of what they wanted. But the downside is that a greater number of students did not get everything that they wanted,” said Mr. Davis.
An anonymous Upper Mid wrote, “The elective I’m currently enrolled in was my 6th choice. After being waitlisted in my top three, they asked me for more choices. I was only offered a spot in my 6th choice.”
Some courses are not offered each year due to staffing, student interest, and other factors. For example, the Prep and Lower Mid classes grew significantly this year, resulting in the need to close a section of Senior English in order to staff an additional section of lower level English. Mr. Davis said, “There are new courses we want to offer, but we can’t just keep adding classes. So some classes are not offered, not because we don’t like them—we’re just rotating between classes.”
