CS Course Restrictions & Enrollment Caps

The popularity of CS courses has grown dramatically in the past few years.  Most are now full by the beginning of each semester. While the Computer Science Department sincerely wishes to give students from across campus the opportunity to take CS courses, we have to ensure that students who are specifically required to take these courses can do so when they need them in order to graduate. For that reason, we have been restricting enrollment for many of our courses during the early registration period each term and capping enrollments below maximum capacity in order to save seats for incoming Computer Science students and those who find out at the last minute that they need a certain course. The Current Registration Restrictions, linked below, lists our restrictions for the most immediate term, and indicates if/when we might release those restrictions, and if/when we might release any seats we have held back for various reasons.  Note that as we work to ensure as many seats as is practical for certain courses, we might move courses into different (usually larger) rooms well after early registration has begun. If we are able to add seats or sections to a course after major restrictions have been lifted, the CS department reserves the right to temporarily place major and program restrictions back on these sections to allow CS major and Engineering tuition students the ability to make changes to their schedules. The dates these restrictions will be removed will be shared on the CS Undergraduate Advising Piazza.

Click here -> Current Registration Restrictions

Computer Science Course Restrictions for Spring 2024

 

Students should follow our Undergraduate Advising PIAZZA: piazza.com/illinois/other/csadvising
Piazza is the location where the department will announce if there are additional seats being released on a day not specified within this document.

 

 **Prerequisites are enforced for nearly all undergraduate sections of 400-level CS courses. Plan accordingly.

  • Some seats will be reserved for incoming graduate, first year, and transfer students.  The instructor and advisors cannot give an override for these reserved seats. 
  • If a section says "Closed," it is full at that time and we will not be providing overrides even if Enterprise lists remaining seats.  Many CS courses have multiple sections/crosslists, which share all of the seats for the entire course.  If one section says there are remaining seats, those seats are likely occupied by students in another section.   To know actual seats remaining in a cross-listed course, you must look at the XL remaining number in Enterprise (Self-Service).
  • For online sections you must read the course notes in Enterprise/Course Explorer or the online UIUC class schedule to find out if you are eligible to register for the section. (This includes City Scholar sections) https://courses.illinois.edu/schedule
  • The CS Academic Office will not create or manage wait-lists.
  • Students in CS majors have specific sections to register for in CS 124, 128, 173, 225, & 233. All other students must register for the non-major sections, no exceptions. 
  • For CS students to register for a CS 397 Individual Study, CS 497 Team Project or CS 499 Senior Thesis go to the following link and complete the form after speaking with faculty:  https://my.cs.illinois.edu/IndStudy.
  • CS 400-level courses (unless otherwise listed) If the course is cross-listed with another department the CS Section will be restricted to students in CS programs and the cross-listed section to those within the other department, until restrictions are lifted.
  • Grad-level courses for undergrads:  If the course has both a 3- & 4-hour sections, 4-hour sections are generally restricted to graduate-level students.  Any undergraduate wanting the graduate-level 4-hour section or a 500-level course must receive approval from the instructor and department.  To obtain this, students complete the following petition Undergrad Application for Access to CS Grad Sections: https://my.cs.illinois.edu/ugpetitions/. To be fully approved to register a graduate course or section, students need approval from the course instructor and from the CS department. Because graduate students often register later, the CS department will not begin reviewing submitted requests until 3 weeks prior to the start of the semester, at the earliest. Requests should be submitted the Thursday before classes begin and anything after will be subject to delays and possibly a late course change (add/drop) form.  You must complete the petition for any consideration into a grad level CS course.  If the course has an undergraduate section you must have a seat in the undergrad section until the department reviews the requests.  If the course is filled with graduate students and the course sections appear "Closed," the class is full to capacity and we cannot add more students. Instructor approval does not guarantee department approval. If you are requesting access to a graduate section of a summer course, please email instructor approval directly to undergrad@cs.illinois.edu before the start of the summer term for full consideration.
  • Overlapping courses (Time conflict): Enterprise will not let students register for classes with meeting times that overlap. However, the CS Undergraduate Advising Office can provide an override if at least one of the courses is a CS course. To get an override for a CS course (plan to miss a CS course lecture), students must submit a ‘Time Conflict’ request in the CS petitions portal: https://my.cs.illinois.edu/ugpetitions. The form will be sent to the instructor for the following approvals: 1) the instructor is OK with the student missing class time 2) the instructor is willing to provide a conflict examination if the course overlap results in two final exams scheduled at the same time. Once the instructor approves in the portal, the request will be reviewed by the CS department. Starting for Spring 2023 registration, all time conflict requests for CS courses will need to be submitted in the CS petitions portal. The CS Department will not enter time conflict overrides unless it is a CS course the student plans to miss and a CS instructor who approves the absences (and potential conflict exam). If it is a non-CS course the student plans to miss, the student must seek a time-conflict override from the other course instructor and the department controlling the other course. Students will be notified of decisions within the petition portal (and via automated email). Requests will be reviewed on a rolling basis.  If you are granted the time conflict override, it is your responsibility to understand the expectations and consequences of missing scheduled lectures and keeping up with the missed content.
  • Automatic Prerequisite Enforcement:  We will continue to enforce prerequisites for our 100-, 200- and 300-level coursework as we have for the past few semesters.  We will also now be enforcing prerequisites on many 400-level CS electives for undergraduates, as well.  Students who have transfer or proficiency credit that is not yet in the system should fill out a prerequisite override request, providing evidence of their credit.  Students who have permission from an instructor to meet a prerequisite that they don’t have credit for will need to include an email from the instructor or screenshot to document that permission.
    You will not be granted an override for missing coursework used for a previous prerequisite override.

 

GRAD STUDENTS

  • CS GRAD STUDENTS: Most CS 400-level classes are now available to register for 3 or 4 credit hours, if the 3 credit option is available for graduate students. Review info on Registrar page for updating variable credit hours (https://registrar.illinois.edu/registration/registration-process/variable-credit-hours/). CS 498 courses will have separate sections for 3 (if available) and 4 credit hours.
  • Non-CS GRADS:  CS will open GRAD seats to all GRADS on January 2nd-3rd for Spring 2024.
  • Non-CS GRAD students wanting 100, 200, or 300 level CS courses must submit a request here: https://go.cs.illinois.edu/SP24GradAccess. Any request submitted after 9 am on the 10th day (the add deadline) will not be reviewed/approved for the current semester.

 

COURSES OFFERED ON COURSERA

Read this Important Information on how to access your CS Course Hosted on Coursera 

Spring 2024 Courses offered on Coursera available to on-campus students include:

  • CS 435 Cloud Networking
  • CS 437 Topics in Internet of Things
  • CS 445 Computational Photography
  • CS 463 / ECE 424 Computer Security II
  • CS 484 Parallel Programming
  • CS 498 Cloud Computing Applications

**Courses offered in the Coursera platform cannot be added (section changed) after the 10 day add deadline.