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Waitlist Information

Beginning with the Spring 2019 pre-registration cycle, the following departments will be participating in a waitlist pilot program where several of their undergraduate courses will offer a waitlist option if their courses are full: 

Pilot Participants:
  • Accounting
  • Agricultural Economics
  • Agricultural Leadership, Education, & Communications
  • Biology
  • College of Agriculture & Life Sciences (select college courses)
  • College of Engineering  (not all departments, only select college courses)
  • College of Geosciences  (not all departments, only select college courses)
  • School of Public Health  (not all departments, only select college courses)
  • Electrical & Computer Engineering
  • Geology & Geophysics 
  • Marine Biology
  • Management
Beginning with open registration, if seat(s) become available, a student on the waitlist may be notified and provided an option to enroll in the course.  Students will have 48 hours from the time of the notice to log into Howdy and register for the offered seat.

General Guidelines:
  • Waitlisting does NOT guarantee a seat in the course.
  • Waitlisted courses do not count towards enrolled hours.
  • All pre-requisite, registration restrictions, and registration holds apply to whether or not a student can waitlist a course.
  • Students can sign up on a waitlist beginning with pre-registration if a course* is full.
  • Waitlist notices to students will start going out nightly beginning with Open Registration:
    • Notices will only be sent on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights. 
    • Notices are sent to students official Texas A&M email addres.  Students should monitor their email daily. 
  • Students are given approximately 48 hours to add the course, once the email notification has been sent. 
  • Students are NOT automatically enrolled in a course from the waitlist. Students must take action to enroll.

Additional student and staff waitlist information is available in the Howdy portal:

Student FAQs

Waitlists are a queue that allowing you to wait for a seat to open in a class. If the participating course is full, you have the option of joining the waitlist. If you are on the list and a seat opens up, you may be provided with an option to register for the course during open registration.   There is no guarantee a seat will be offered to any particular student on a waitlist.
Registering for a place on the waitlist for a class is similar to registering for a seat in the class.

When registering for courses in Howdy, and a course is full,  you will see a "Registration Add Error" and you will have the option of electing to be on the waitlist in the Action drop down menu. The schedule will now display this class status as “Wait Listed”.
Beginning with Open Registration, notifications of open seats will begin to be sent to eligible students from the waitlist.   A notification email will be sent to your official NetID@tamu.edu email address. It is important that you check your official TAMU email on a daily basis so that you will be able to see if you received this notification. You will have approximately 48 hours from the time the email is sent to take action and officially register for the course.
If you do not register during your 48 hour reservation, your time will expire and you will no longer have access to reigster for the course and you will no longer be on the waitlist.  If desired, you can add yourself back on the waitlist, however, you will not be guaranteed the same position in the queue.
You may not be able to add to a waitlist for the class, if:
  • It is not a valid registration period (i.e. pre-registration or open registration)
  • The department of that course is not participating in waitlisting
  • You may have a hold on your account preventing registration or signing up for waitlists
  • You may not meet the course pre-requisites or restrictions
You are able to drop yourself from a waitlist the same way you would drop from a course you are actually registered for. Go to Howdy and access "Add/Drop". After you select the term you are trying to edit, you can use the down arrow box to drop the class and remove yourself from the waitlist.

You can tell whether or not a course has a waitlist available by searching the schedule of classes in Howdy.  Course attributes have been added to all courses offering the waitlist feature.  You can search by the Waitlist attribute by setting the class search criteria as follows: 

  • Subject code criteria:  Search by individual subject code or search multiple subject codes by holding down the Shift and clicking on subject codes you want to check.
  • Attribute Type: Select the attribute code "Waitlist Available"
  • Click on "Class Search" to view all courses with a waitlist available if the course is full.

 

No.  Adding to the waitlist does not guarantee a student will be offered a seat in the course. 
Yes! The waitlist process will send notification emails to your official TAMU email about your waitlist status.  These are extremely important as you will be notified if a seat is available and being offered to you and will only have approximately 48 hours from the time the notice is sent, for you to take action and officially enroll yourself in the available seat.   The waitlist notifications will be sent nightly (Sunday-Thursday) during open registration as seats become available.


 

Student Resources 
Howdy > My Record tab > Learn About the My Record Tab portlet


Staff Resources
Howdy > Employee tab > Compass User Training > Records, Registration, and Advising > Registration