A&S Registration Guide for Incoming First-Year Students

April-May: Complete these tasks to prepare for academic advising

May 24: Start connecting with academic advising

Incoming first-year students who have confirmed their enrollment will see their academic advisor assignment on May 24 and can start accessing advising at that time.

You can connect with your academic advisor over the summer in two main ways*: individual appointments and drop-in hours. Advising availability is primarily virtual via Zoom. When viewing your advisor's calendar, note that times are always displayed in Mountain Time.

*If you have any questions about your academic advisor's availability/calendar, you can reach out to them directly using your Ҵýƽ email address.

Individual Appointments

  • Individual appointments are 30-45 minutes, so they are the best way to make the initial connection with your assigned advisor and have a more comprehensive meeting. You and your advisor can start getting to know each other, you can have a deeper discussion about your academic goals and interests, you can share what makes you excited or nervous about coming to Ҵýƽ, and so on.
  • To schedule and individual appointment:
    • Go to Buff Portal Advising (BPA)and Log in as a Current Student. Under Student Success Team,click on your academic advisor’s picture to open up their calendar. Individual Appointments will be labeled as “[Advisor’s name] First Year Advising Appointment" or something similar.
  • Need help? Read .

Drop-In Hours

  • Students are limited to 10-15 minutes during drop-in hours, so they are the best way to get quick questions answered, ideally after you have already met with your assigned advisor in an individual appointment.
  • To look for drop-in hours:
    • Go to Buff Portal Advising (BPA)and Log in as a Current Student. Under Student Success Team,click on your academic advisor’s picture to open up their calendar. Drop-in hours will be labeled as “[Advisor’s name] First Year Advising Drop Ins" or something similar.
  • Note: With drop-ins, you cannot reserve a spot in advance or enter your advisor'swaiting room outside of the designated hours. Click the Zoom link during the designated hours, and youwill be admitted into the waiting room until your advisor is available to meet with you.

May-June: Additional steps to prepare for registration

Step 1

Remember to sign up for a New Student Orientation session

You can select your New Student Orientation session through.

Note: You must complete the Online Experience before attending New Student Orientation.

Step 2

Learn more about your major requirements and explore options to customize your degree

The College of Arts & Sciences offers many ways to customize your degree at Ҵýƽ. Before you register for classes, we recommend reviewingyour intended major's requirements and example four-year plan(s) of study, and exploring any other majors, minors, or certificates you might be interested in.

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Step 3

Learn more about the Arts & Sciences General Education (Gen Ed) requirements

General Educationrequirements covera range of subjects and skills that allow you to explore as you pursue your Ҵýƽ degree.

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Gen Ed coursescan be taken throughout the time you are working on your degree, andmany first-year studentsenroll in oneor moreGen Edsin their first semester.

Step 4

Review your degree audit

Do you have transfer and/or AP/IBcredits and want to know how they were applied? Are you wonderingif you alreadyfulfilled the World Language requirement or not?Your degree audit is where you can find out(remember that your official transcripts/test scores must be received and processed by Ҵýƽ first).

Degree Audit Breakdown

Screenshot of Degree Audit legend

After you openall sections, the degree audit may seem overwhelming at first.

Below is ageneral breakdownof the sections of the degree audit:

  • Section 1-Overall credit and GPA requirementsto graduate from the College of Arts & Sciences.
  • Section 2-General Education requirementsfor the College of Arts & Sciences.
  • Section 3-Specific requirements for yourmajor(not applicable at this time if you are Open Option).
  • Section 4-Coursework history.
  • Section 5-Legendthatoutlines the symbols used to show when courses are completed, planned, in progress, or unfulfilled.

Note: The degree audit does not list the order in which major classes should be taken. For that, refer back to your majorrequirements using the link from Step 2.

Step 5

Search for classes

After connecting with advising and reviewing your degree audit, you hopefully have a good idea of how to choose classes. Now you canstart familiarizing yourself with the! Log in using the "Login" button at the top right corner of the page. We highly recommend you practice searching for classes before you attend your New Student Orientation session.

Using Class Search Filters

Upper Section: Basic Filters

When searching for classes:

Set the “Any Campus” filter toBoulder Main Campus.
Set the“Any Career/Course Level” filter to Undergrad Lower Division.

Check the "Avoid Schedule Conflicts" box (this willbe more relevantonce youhave priorityclasses in your cart).

If you have a job, family obligations, etc., you can also use the "Avoid Certain Time Periods" feature.

Middle Section: General Education / Core Courses Search

To search by Arts & Sciences Gen Ed categories:

Click on "Gen Educ / Core / Hum & Soc Sci Search" to expand the menu.

Click on "Any A&S GenEd Attributes (Fall 2018+)" to expand that menu, and then select the category you want.

Tip: Keep your major in mind when exploring.An Astronomymajor, for example, will complete theNatural Sciences Distribution through their required major coursework. So, they may want to spend more time on exploring classes in the Arts & Humanities and Social Sciences Distributions.

Lower Section: Advanced Search Filters

There are a number of potentially helpful advanced filters, but we want to call outthe "Open, Waitlisted, or Closed" filter in particular. We encourage students to set itto Open Only so they do not have to read through the course information to find out whether or not seats are available.

Setting the filter to Open Onlyis especially useful if you are in your orientation session and looking to round out your schedule. You do not want to waste time looking at classes that are already full!

Note: You are not able to waitlist for classes during your orientation session.

Step 6

Build your shopping cart

Again, we highly recommend you practice searching for classes and adding them to your shopping cart before attending your New Student Orientation session. This will greatly help during your registration. The Registrar's website has a great guide of the different actions to use when creating and editing your cart. Be sure to review the adding, dropping and swapping class tiles.

Registration glossary and key terms

  • Recitation: This is a required component of some larger lecture-style classes. This is a smaller meeting (typically once a week) in addition to the lecture.

  • Lab: Interactive workshop component of a class usually held in a laboratory. The laboratory meeting time is separate from the lecture, although it is often associated with the lecture.

  • Lower Division: Any 1000 or 2000 level course. These are most appropriate for first-year students.

  • Prerequisite: A prerequisite is a specific course that you must complete before you can take another course at the next level. For example, successful completion of MATH 1150 (Precalculus) is a prerequisite for enrollment in MATH 1300 (Calculus 1), meaning you need to complete MATH 1150 with a certain grade before you can take MATH 1300.

  • Corequisite: Sometimes classes are corequisites, meaning you can either take it before the other class OR at the same time as the other class. For example, enrollment in CHEM 1114 (Laboratory for General Chemistry 1) is a corequisite for enrollment in CHEM 1113 (General Chemistry 1), meaning you need to take them together.

  • Registration Restrictions for a specific class will let you know if it’s restricted to majors or students in aspecific college.

  • Open Sections Restricted to Specific Student Populations: Keep an eye out for odd-lookingcourse sectionssuch as 214R or 300E or 880. Such sections may appearto have open seats but are limited to specific groups on campus and unavailable to others.

  • Continuing Education (CE) Courses: Continuing Education is a division of Ҵýƽ with apopulation primarily consisting ofnon-traditional students. Ҵýƽ undergraduate and graduate students can enroll in classes through CE but there are a couple of things to consider. First,CE classes are billed separately and tuition rates are different. This is especially important to consider if you are an out of state student. Second, CE classes are mostly taught online and are often delivered asynchronously. If you are considering a class through CE, please discuss it first with your academic advisor.

June or July: Time to register!

If you have followed this guide over the summer, you should be ready for registration during your New Student Orientation session in June or July. If you have not done so already, make sure youcompletepre-registration-this is required for you to complete each time you register for classes. We have some additionalreminders/tips for registration below.

Reminder: Prepare your cart before your orientation session, but also keep in mind that adding classes to your cart does not guarantee you will get into them. Tobe as prepared as possible, make sure you have a backup plan!

Reminder: Enroll in required recitations or labs. If you want to register for a class that has a required recitation or lab section, makesure you have added both a lecture section and a corresponding recitation/lab section to your cart. Missing one element or the other will delay the submission of your cart!

Tip: Set an alarm reminder for your orientation session. To havethe best chance of getting into your preferred classes, be prepared to submit your cartimmediately when your enrollment begins. Remember, the time your enrollment occurs is in Mountain Time.