Enrollment Components & Troubleshooting Tips

Throughout the enrollment process, several key elements come together to shape your course registration experience. From joining waitlists to navigating reserved seating in high-demand classes, each component plays a vital role in ensuring that students can enroll in a fair and transparent manner. This page breaks down these components, providing clarity on how each one contributes to the overall enrollment experience.

Jump to:

• Combined Sections
• Enrollment Holds
• Permission Numbers
• Requisites
• Reserve Seating
• Waitlists
• Unit Shaving

Combined Sections 

When a course is crosslisted (i.e., offered by multiple departments under different names), it is typically scheduled as combined sections. This means the classes are held simultaneously in the same room. Since the classes share the same meeting time and space, they are assigned a combined enrollment limit to ensure the total number of students fits within the room's capacity. 

In a combined section class, the overall enrollment limit is fed by the multiple sections. When you review the real-time enrollment data for a single section, it may look as if there are spaces available. However, if you try to enroll and the system indicates that the course is full, it’s because those spaces are actually filled by students enrolling in the course’s other “combined section(s).” You can view the combined enrollment information in Navigate Classes:

In the image above, you can see under “Enrollment Status” that the individual section has 31 open seats. However, the Total Capacity of the combined section indicates that there are only 16 seats available overall. Once the Total Capacity has been filled, no further enrollment will be allowed in any of the sections, regardless of whether or not there are remaining seats for that section. 

Enrollment Holds

An enrollment hold is a temporary block on your account that prevents you from making changes to your enrollment. Stanford uses enrollment holds to ensure that important issues are resolved before students continue their studies. If you are unable to enroll in any classes, you should ensure there are no active holds on your account. If you have a hold, it will be displayed on your Axess home page in the Holds, To Do's and Notifications section. Click on the hold for additional details. There’s typically an action you’ll need to take to remove the enrollment hold.

Permission Numbers

Departments may choose to limit enrollment in their courses with permission numbers. Each permission number pertains to a specific class in a specific quarter, and is valid for only one use. For example, if you enrolled in the course using a valid permission number but then dropped the class, you won’t be able to use that same number to re-enroll. Or, if the permission number pertains to that specific class – but for a prior quarter – it won’t allow you to enroll. Or, if the permission number pertains to another section of a "combined section" class – but not to the section you’re trying to enroll – it won’t work.  

If your permission number is not working, you’ll need to contact the instructor/department who gave it to you in order to request a new permission number that is linked to the specific course and valid for this specific term.

Requisites

During your enrollment process, you may encounter course requisites, which are requirements that must be met to enroll in certain classes. 

• Prerequisites are courses or conditions you must complete before enrolling in a specific class. 
• Corequisites are courses you need to take at the same time as the one you’re enrolling in. 
• Antirequisites prevent you from enrolling in a course if you've already completed another course with overlapping content. 

Requisites ensure that students are adequately prepared for the course material and prevent duplication of learning. Be sure to review requisites carefully when selecting your courses, as they may restrict your ability to enroll. In most cases, this information can be found in the course description. 

AP Credit: AP, IB, or other external test credit is not formally articulated to Stanford university courses. In other words, the enrollment system does not recognize this credit as being the same as the Stanford course equivalent.  Some Stanford courses are set up to check for test credit as a prerequisite, while others are not. If you are unable to enroll in a course but you have the corresponding test credit, it is because the class is set up to check for the Stanford course, not its test credit equivalent. We recommend you reach out to the course-offering department for a permission code. A permission code will allow you to bypass the requisites and enroll in the course.

Transfer Credit: Only course-to-course equivalency credit can be used for enrollment requisites. This external credit has been articulated to a specific Stanford courses so the system will recognize the prior enrollment. Students with program elective credit or non-program elective credit will not be able to use these courses towards pre-requisite requirements. This credit has not been formally articulated to Stanford courses. While you may have individual program requirements waived through this type of transfer credit, the enrollment system does not recognize this credit as being the same as the Stanford course equivalent.  We recommend you reach out to the course-offering department for a permission code. A permission code will allow you to bypass the requisites and enroll in the course.

Reserved Seating

In some courses, a portion of seats is set aside for specific groups of students, such as majors, first-year students, or seniors, for a limited time. This ensures that certain student populations have priority access to courses they may need to meet graduation or program requirements. Once the reserved seating period ends, any remaining seats may become available to all students.

Students can view full information about a class’s reserved seating in Navigate Classes:

You will be able to clearly see which group of students seats are reserved for in the Reserved Group column. For example, in the screenshot above, “MS&E Juniors and Seniors” indicates that seats are being reserved for junior and senior students declared in the MS&E major. “Seniors only” indicates that there are seats reserved for seniors, regardless of a student’s declared major. 

Important: When determining a student’s cohort, The reserved seating functionality checks your "academic level" -- which is based on the number of units you have completed:

• Completed less than 40 units = Frosh
• Completed 40 - 84 units = Sophomore
• Completed 85 - 129 units = Junior
• Completed more than 130 units = Senior

After the reserved seating period ends (the "End Date"), any unfilled reserved seats become available to all students who want to enroll in the course.

Waitlists

If a class shows as full in Axess, you may be able to join a waitlist. If and when a spot opens up in the class, the first eligible student on the waitlist will automatically be added into the class.

Waitlist eligibility (i.e., your eligibility to be added to the class) is based upon time conflicts, holds, and maximum units. You will not be enrolled from a waitlist if:

• You have a time conflict (i.e., you are enrolled in another class that wholly or partially overlaps with the class for which you are on the waitlist), you will be bypassed and the next eligible student will be added. You will need to drop the conflicting class before you can be enrolled from the waitlist.
  • You can avoid this issue by designating your existing class as a "drop if enrolled" class at the time when you enroll on the waitlist. With the "drop if enrolled" designation, you are eligible to  enroll into your desired class from the waitlist while simultaneously being dropped from your conflicting class.
• Enrolling in the class will take you above the maximum allowable units (i.e., 20 units for undergraduates), you will be bypassed and the next eligible student will be added.
• You have an enrollment hold, you will be bypassed and the next eligible student will be added. You can review your hold details in Axess. If needed, contact the Student Services Center for more information about a hold on your enrollment.

The waitlist process is typically run twice a day, and the system will send an email letting you know whether it was able to enroll you. If there was no spot for you, the system will alert you that you have not been enrolled.  

Please note that when the waitlist is between processes, if other students drop the course, it can appear as if there are spaces in the class. However, you may not be able to add to the class roster because the system is waiting to run the waitlist. If there is space available on the waitlist, you may instead add yourself to the waitlist.

Unit Shaving

Occasionally, a student may request permission to enroll in fewer units than the number associated with a course. This practice of “unit shaving” or unit adjustment is not permitted. Courses may be taken only for the number of units that are listed in Axess or ExploreCourses. For example, a course offered for 5 units may only be taken for 5 units. Courses offered for variable units (e.g., 3-5 units) may be taken for the number of units chosen by the student with the stated range. Students should complete and be evaluated on the amount of work associated with the number of units they enrolled in. See the university policy, Amount of Work, in the Student Policies section concerning university expectations for the relationship between work and units of credit.