Enrollment (Add or Drop a Course)

Continuing students

You will enroll in classes in two "phases". In Phase 1, you can enroll in up to 13.5 units. During Phase 2, you can enroll in up to 17.5 units. 

Incoming STUDENTS

You will enroll in classes during your Phase 1. In Phase 1, you can enroll in up to 17.5 units. Incoming students do not have a Phase 2 enrollment period.

All STUDENTS

During the Adjustment Period at the beginning of each term, you can enroll up to the maximum unit limit, which is 20.5 units. For more information about enrollment phases visit the Office of the Registrar’s Enrollment page.

The unit limits during each phase include waitlisted units.

Each phase has end dates, so be sure to check out the Student Enrollment Calendar on the Office of the Registrar’s website.

A prerequisite is a course or exam required to be completed before being allowed to enroll in a course. For example, Math 1A or the equivalent credit is a prerequisite to Math 1B, meaning Math 1A must be completed before Math 1B. 

Reserved seats are seats the department has set aside for special populations. Most typically, these are seats reserved for students declared in a major or minor. classes.berkeley.edu will detail reserved seat restrictions. 

Instructor or department approval for a course means that a student must receive a permission number from an instructor or department to add a course. 

For basic information and technical questions about these topics, see the SIS Enrollment FAQ page. 

For questions about exceptions, permissions, or whether you have satisfied a prerequisite, you will contact the department that hosts the course

L&S Advising has no authority to make decisions regarding the above topics.

Basic information and strategies for waitlists can be found on the SIS Enrollment FAQ page. 

As mentioned at the top of the page, a department may still add students to classes from a waitlist until the Friday after the add/drop deadline. This means if you stop monitoring your schedule after the add/drop deadline, you may not be aware you have been enrolled into a course. It is therefore important to either drop yourself from the waitlist before the add/drop deadline or monitor your waitlist position until the Friday following the add/drop deadline has passed.

For questions about how a particular waitlist is organized (e.g.: whether there is an intention to add more seats, whether they are prioritizing majors or seniors, etc), you will contact the department that hosts the course

While L&S Advising can offer general strategies for waitlists (mostly covered in the above SIS Enrollment FAQ page), L&S Advising has no authority over waitlists nor information on how any particular waitlist is managed.

Information related to swaps and section switches, including how-to guides and regulations, are found on the SIS Enrollment FAQ page. Any technical issues with performing these actions should be directed to sishelp@berkeley.edu

You will often receive an error message if you try to enroll in a course that has a time conflict with another course that is already on your schedule. This same error may prevent you from being enrolled from a waitlist. 

To request a time conflict override, at least one of the departments that host the courses in question will need to agree that you can be granted a time conflict override. 

It is important to not only consider how you will keep up in two courses that are offered at the same time, but also keep in mind that just because a time conflict override is allowed, you may still run into problems if the final exams are offered at the same time. 

You can find more information about time conflicts on the SIS Enrollment FAQ page.

L&S students take a wide range of unit loads, depending on what works for them. The College of Letters and Science requires/allows for:

• a minimum of 13 units in Fall/Spring semesters
• a maximum of 20.5 units Fall/Spring semesters and UC Berkeley Summer Session

For more information about seeking approval to take fewer than 13 units (Reduced Course Load) or enrolling in more than 20.5 units, please visit our page on Unit Minimums and Maximums.

Note: unit maximums for Phase 1 and Phase 2 cannot be adjusted. 

Students are often still working to finalize their schedule after the first day of instruction. As the semester progresses, you may decide you do not wish to keep a course on your schedule and find yourself looking for a replacement. 

Just because you can add a course before the add/drop deadline, does not mean you should add a course. If you are considering adding a course that you have not been attending since the first day instruction, consider the following and discuss with the instructor:

• How many weeks of instruction have you missed?

• How many readings, assignments, and/or quizzes have you missed and does the instructor allow make-ups? How likely is it that you will be able to catch up if they do?

• What is the attendance policy? 

To avoid this challenging situation, L&S College Advisers often recommend a strategy we call the “Shop and Drop” strategy, which is explained on our Semester Schedule Planning page.