Dear Students,
We write today to announce a new aspect to the course registration process that will be piloted this semester as continuing students register for fall 2022 courses. For many years now, our student athletes have faced additional burdens as they attempt to register for the courses needed to fulfill university requirements and graduate in their declared major. These burdens derive primarily from the conflict between the times that courses are offered and the practice times for many of the sports our student athletes compete in, particularly the larger team sports. As there are many student athletes and many potential majors they are pursuing, it is impossible to find a single practice time that alleviates this issue for all student athletes, though our coaches have done everything they can to be accommodating. The result is that student athletes have a significantly smaller number of courses they can register for relative to most non-athletes, and the course size limits carried by some of these disproportionately impact student athletes.
This spring, a pilot program will run in which student athletes will receive a “head-start” with registration. This “head-start” will occur during Registration Course Request processing and will allow for up to 10 credit hours of requested courses for each student athlete to be processed prior to non- athlete registration requests in that same registration group. Please keep in mind, this “head-start” does not guarantee these students a seat in any given course, as the ability of student athletes to secure these courses will still depend on the course size limits, demand and other factors that normally impact the ability of students to register for courses. Requests for courses beyond 10 hours will be processed at the same time as all other students in that registration group. More details can be found at: https://registrar.rice.edu/
This solution is similar to priority registration procedures at many of our peer academic and athletic institutions. However, unlike other schools, we are testing this only in the first part of Rice’s registration process, and this pilot program will not change any of the procedures that normally occur during the add/drop period. The impacts of this pilot procedure will be evaluated early next fall after the add period concludes for Fall 2022.
If you have any questions, please contact one of us.
Regards,
Reginald DesRoches, Howard Hughes Provost
Bridget Gorman, Dean of Undergraduates