Reporter Volume 25, No.21 March 17, 1994

Registration Update for Undergraduate Students
from the Office of Student Finances and Records

Two Early Registrations for Fall 1994

What is meant by two registrations:
We're going to provide you with the opportunity to add additional
courses and drop courses as well, after the standard op-scan ("bubble
sheet") registration that we used to call pre-registration. We can do
that because we are now able to start earlier; i.e., print the Class
Schedule almost a month earlier than we used to.

A bird's eye view of how it will work this semester.
	March 24-25: Pick up your Undergraduate Class Schedules and
your op-scan forms at our offices.
	April 14-15: Turn in your completed op-scan forms at our
offices.
	April 19-22: Pick up the schedule card results of your first
registration at Hayes B and the Student Union lobby.
	May 5-6: Turn in your second op-scan form if you so desire, to
add more courses or drop some.
	After May 8, our offices will print schedule cards for anyone
who stops by and asks.

What if I get all the courses I want during the first registration?
Good for you. In that case, you certainly don't need to pay any
attention to the second early registration.

But what if I didn't get any courses during the first registration? Or
I couldn't get the first registration on April 14-15?
The two early registrations are "opportunities." If you didn't get any
courses during the first registration, we will direct you to those
places where open course lists are posted so that you can select from
courses where you will have a chance for a successful registration.
You will still have one opportunity to register before the semester
ends, and that's one more than you had before.
	As to your options if you didn't turn in forms at the first
registration or, for example, you had a checkstop that you didn't
resolve before the registration, you have the same "one more
opportunity" as anyone else to prepare for the second registration in
May. So it doesn't matter if you participate in the first, the first
and second, or just the second registration. You are welcome at either
or both!

Will I get a late fee if I don't turn in an op-scan form?
You will be assessed late registration penalties if, by the first
billing date, you have registered no hours because you made no attempt
to register or if you attempted to register and had a checkstop of
some kind. We hope that you, as an undergraduate, feel that you have
to turn in op-scan forms just to help yourself create a reasonable
schedule of courses for the next semester in this competitive
registration at UB. But, to answer your questions about money, yes,
you will almost assuredly get late fees if you don't participate in
the op-scan registrations.

What if I don't get all my courses during the second registration?
We believe that most students will not be completely finished with
their registration, even after the second registration. We didn't
intend that this type of registration process would eliminate
students' need (or desire) to adjust their schedules at Drop/Add. So
when you don't complete your registration even after the second
registration, wait for Drop/Add to open.

How will the computer know that we want to drop a course with the
op-scan process?
We have placed a bubble labeled "Drop" at the bottom of every request
box on the op-scan forms. If you fill in this bubble, the computer
will understand that it is to drop the course whose registration
number is contained there. If you don't touch this bubble, the
computer believes that you plan to add this course. It is important
for you to understand that, no matter where you place the course you
wish to drop, the computer will read all your requests and perform the
"drop" actions before it adds the other requests on your page(s). So,
it's not like Drop/Add where you say to the person behind the
computer, "Don't drop that unless you can add this."

So why don't we just have Drop/Add instead of this process?
We're looking for a short-term (two semester)improvement over the way
we've provided registration in the past. Adding a drop/add period to
the end of this semester wouldn't be an improvement at this time, not
for you who would have to stand in long lines when you should be
preparing for finals, and not for our office whose staff should be
attending to degree audit and grading and transcripts business. In
April 1995, we will cease early registration and op-scan entirely
because TouchTone registration will be implemented for everybody.

Why go through this new process of changing the way op-scan
registration works if we're just going to have to learn another way in
a couple of semesters?
We actually had planned to have this two-registration process in place
at least two years ago, but other changes in our computing systems
prevented that. Now that we have the technical ability to publish our
class schedule almost a month earlier than when we had to do
everything by hand, we wanted to make good use of the time between now
and next year when everyone can register by TouchTone telephone. And
we hope you'll agree that this is not a big change, just an extra
chance to leave campus at the end of a semester with possibly more
courses than you had after past op-scan registrations.