Department registration guidelines
Course registration is your responsibility. If you are in a rare situation, like trying to graduate in 2 terms, please contact our advising team (geogadvising@uvic.ca). Instructors are not responsible for fixing registration issues.
Waitlists
Students on a waitlist must wait and attend all classes. We have no control over waitlists and can never guarantee that you will get into the class. It depends on how many spaces open up and where you are on the waitlist.
Keep in mind that most courses rarely ever fill up. We know it’s stressful to be on the waitlist until the deadline for adding. If you are serious about getting into the class, you need to stay on the waitlist and keep attending until the deadline.
If you do not accept a registration offer for the course before the offer deadline, you will automatically be placed at the bottom of the waitlist.
Registration in courses with labs
Your registration is considered incomplete if you are not registered in both the lecture section and a lab section of a course with labs.
You should not be registered in a lab section if you are on the waitlist for the lecture section.
You should attend all lectures while on the waitlist. Do not attend a lab section until you are officially registered in both the lecture section and a lab section. To keep up with lab work, consult with the course instructor during their office hours to find out what work has been assigned. Work will not be marked until you are officially registered.
If you are able to register in the lecture before the 100% drop deadline but not able to register in a lab, please refer to the next point about being registered in the lecture section only.
After the 100% course drop deadline, if you are offered a place in the lecture, you should only proceed if you can register in both the lecture and a lab section.
You must be officially registered in the lecture section and a lab section. If only one lab section works for your schedule and it is full, then you have 2 options:
- Wait to see if a spot opens.
- Change your schedule to make another lab section work.
If you can’t register in a lab by the 100% course drop deadline, you should drop the course. Otherwise, you run the risk of needing to drop it during the 50% drop period. You must be officially registered in a lab section by the course add deadline to take the course.
This situation should never happen. You should always register first in the lecture section, and then register in a lab section.
When we learn that a student is registered in a lab section, but not the lecture section (or if they are on the waitlist, but have already registered in a lab section), we remove them from the lab.
Prerequisite waiver requests
You should only request a prerequisite waiver if you have evidence of equivalent academic preparation.
The first step is to get written permission from the instructor. After you have that, send the following to geogadvising@uvic.ca:
- a copy of the course instructor's written permission
- a pre-requisite waiver form with the student information and student declaration sections completed
We will never waive a prerequisite without the instructor’s consent.
Missing prerequisites
If you are missing a prerequisite and have not submitted a prerequisite waiver request, we will email you to request one. If you have not received permission by the 100% drop deadline, we will drop you from the course.
Increasing the enrollment cap
Increasing the enrollment cap for a course only occurs in the most exceptional of circumstances, especially if the course includes a lab component.
Increasing a course’s enrollment cap can only occur with the permission of the department chair. An enrollment increase request will not proceed due to safety concerns if the facilities (e.g. chairs, desk space, lab equipment) do not permit additional students.
If the course has a lab component, all lab instructors must agree to take on more students and redistribute workloads. The course instructor may need to take on more of the total course workload.
Auditing a course
It is not possible to audit a course that is already full. There must be an available registration space for an audit request to be considered.
If you would like to audit a course, the expectation is that you will only attend the lecture. It is expected that auditors will not participate in class discussions, take up class or instructor time or attend a lab section. Instructors may make exceptions to these rules in exceptional cases.