Time tickets for the spring semester opened up first for Chancellor’s Scholars, James Scholars and veterans or service members on Oct. 29. Varsity athletes and Disability Resources & Educational Services students came next on Oct. 30. On Halloween, seniors — and those with senior standing — were allowed to register. Juniors, sophomores and freshmen followed suit, often capping off the final seats of the sea of fast-filling classes offered here at the University.

This in itself doesn’t seem problematic, saying scholars, athletes and those with disabilities don’t deserve an earlier registration time is absurd. But it’s worth noting even freshmen who are James or Chancellor’s Scholars register earlier than seniors.

Students can still achieve excellence without being a James or Chancellor’s Scholar. Many students still earn a place on the dean’s list, acquire scholarships and fellowships, and involve themselves in a plethora of extracurriculars. Most of all, what happened to seniority?

So when upperclassmen, more specifically seniors, register for classes in their final two semesters, they should have absolutely no trouble doing so. It might be only a small amount of juniors and seniors who are still faced with the same class registration problems that haunted them their freshman and sophomore years, but this issue has gotten out of hand. 

And it’s true Coursicle and/or Course Explorer can help solve the problem of students not being able to register for class. These tools notify you when another student in the class drops, allowing you the opportunity to register. But even then, it’s more than likely the sweet, sweet green symbol is only there for a minute. Chances are, a dozen other students were also notified. It might take as much as three tries for a student to finally be nimble enough to wake up at 5:04 a.m. and register, thanks to their phone notifying them that SHS 121 is now open.

This only perpetuates how registration truly is every man and woman for themselves.

Then comes the problem of the University consecutively topping each previous year with record enrollment for the last eight years. It wouldn’t be a matter of housing, as the University is currently remodeling ISR and is planning to do the same to Taft and Van Doren afterward. More apartments and high rises are underway on and off Green Street, most notably seen with the absence of Hometown Pantry, Jimmy John’s, Firehaus and Cly’s, among others.

Registration is already a semiannual battle as is. If the University aims to enroll more students while allowing the free-for-all that is class registration to continue, the issue will only worsen.