General Principles
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We strongly advise all students to plan backups for preferred courses. Often, Cognitive Science majors do not have priority enrollment for courses offered by outside departments (e.g. Sociology, Anthropology, Computer Science, etc).
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Many courses in Cog Sci are cross-listed, for example Cog Sci C100/PsychC120. While you will receive credit for taking either side of the cross-listed course, declared majors will be more easily admitted on the Cog Sci side. If you are undeclared and can (and do) declare at the end of the current semester, you will generally have a higher chance of being enrolled from the Cog Sci side of the wait list.
- Don’t assume that a course will be offered the semester you intend to take it. Course scheduling happens on a semester-by-semester basis and depends upon many variables.
- The vast majority of our partner departments reserve seats in their upper div courses for their own majors at least through the end of Phase 1. It is still common for CogSci majors to get into these courses. Usually, you just have to wait and watch in Phase 2 to see whether the waitlist is moving. Psychology has a somewhat unique process, which we have outlined below.
- 4/13/2023 **NEW POLICY** The Cognitive Science Program does not override time conflicts. If a course allows time conflicts, a note will appear on classes.berkeley.edu. If there is no note, the course will not allow time conflict enrollments. The CogSci advisors will not override time conflicts for courses for which they are not generally allowed. No exceptions will be made to this policy
How we handle waitlists in all CogSci courses, including the CogSci side of cross-listed courses
Seat reservations will be set before enrollment begins. Neither advisors nor faculty will manually enroll students in the course or manipulate the waitlist in any way at any time during enrollment. Students who meet the enrollment restrictions and who enroll while there are still open seats will be able to directly enroll in the course. Students who either do not meet the enrollment restrictions, or whose enrollment time begins after the seats are taken will be placed on the waitlist for the course if it is not yet full.
- Enrollment is restricted to declared Cognitive Science majors during Phase I and the first week of Phase II. Students who are not declared Cognitive Science majors have the option to add to the wait list during this time.
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Beginning the second week of Phase II, staff will release all available seats to non CogSci majors. The auto waitlist will, at that point, fill the open seats. This is the first date in which any students who are not declared CogSci majors can be enrolled in a CogSci course.
- Students enrolled in their final prerequisites who wish to enroll in CogSci classes should submit their major declaration forms as soon as the prerequisite grades appear in CalCentral.
Tips for CogSci Students who want to take a Psychology Course
We receive many questions each semester about how to get into Psychology courses.
ALL seats are reserved in ALL psychology classes for Psychology Majors during phase 1 of enrollment. If you would like to take a psychology class, and are not a Psychology major, you have two options:
1) Waitlist the course during phase I
2) If the waitlist is full or unavailable (which is very common) you will need to try to enroll again during phase II when unfilled seats are released and/or new seats are added.
Important Note: Psych maintains very short waitlists throughout phase II. We advise students to check these courses regularly during phase II to see if a spot on a waitlist has opened up. Because the waitlists are short, every student on the waitlist has a decent chance of getting into the course. So, if you really want a Psych class, it helps to be vigilant.
Any future emails from students regarding this issue will be disregarded as there is nothing that your CogSci advisors can do to assist with enrollment in these courses.
For further information, please review the enrollment tips here: https://psychology.berkeley.edu/students/undergraduate-program/enrollment-policies