Registering in a course from the waitlist

About waitlists  

  • A waitlist may be set up when a course section is full. If you try to register in a course that is full and has a waitlist, you will be added to the waitlist until a seat becomes available for you to register. 
  • Adding yourself to a waitlist does not guarantee that you will be able to register in the course. You will only be able to register in the course if you receive an invitation to register once a seat opens.
  • You can add yourself to as many waitlists as you want.

If you’re on the waitlist and a seat becomes available

If you are on a waitlist and a seat becomes available for you in the course section, you will receive an invitation to register in the course section. 

You will be notified in one of two ways: 

  • You’ll receive an automated email from Workday. 
  • A UBC staff will email you with instructions. 

Monitor your email frequently if you are on a waitlist. You will receive an email if you are offered a seat in the course. You will then have 24 hours to accept the seat before it goes to the next student on the waitlist.

You will also receive a notification in Workday containing the same message about your offer to register. You can read your notifications by clicking the bell icon in the menu bar.

Responding to the seat availability

If you received an automated message from Workday, follow the steps below to accept or deny the seat availability, or remove yourself from the waitlist.

  1. Log into your Workday account at myworkday.ubc.ca. 
  2. On any Workday page, click the “My Tasks” file tray icon in the top menu. Within the “My Tasks” page, you will see a message from the Workday system asking you to confirm your “waitlist advancement”.

From the “My Tasks” message, you can take the following actions: 

Accepting your seat in the course section

  1. If you’d like to enroll in the course, click the orange “Submit” button on the “Confirm Waitlist Advancement” task page.
  2. Scroll down and select all the required course sections from the “Select Course Sections” table by checking the boxes.
  1. If you’ve already registered for the maximum number of credits for the term, or you have a conflicting course section, you can drop a course now to make space for your waitlisted course. If you do not need to drop a course at this time, move on to step 5. 
  • Click the “Drop Registered Courses” tab.
  • Check the box in the “Drop” column for the course you want to drop.
  1. When you are ready to proceed, click the orange “Submit” button at the bottom of the task page to submit your registration. A pop-up notification with the heading, “You have submitted”, will appear under the search bar. 
  2. Click the “View Details” link in the notification for more information. You will be taken to a new page titled “You have submitted”. 
  1. Click the arrow next to “Details and Processes” to expand the section. Here, you can confirm that you are now successfully enrolled in the course section. 

Skipping the seat availability for now

If you don’t want to accept the seat at this time, but also want to remain on the waitlist, follow the steps below to “deny” your seat.

  1. At the bottom of the “Confirm Waitlist Advancement” task page, click the white “Deny” button.
  1. A pop-up window will appear. Review the message and add your reason for denying the offer in the “Reason” field, then click the white “Submit” button.
  1. A pop-up notification with the heading, “You have submitted”, will appear under the search bar. Click the “View Details” link in the notification for more information. You will be taken to a page titled “You have submitted”. 
  1. Click the arrow next to “Details and Processes” to expand the section. Here, you’ll find a confirmation that you’ve denied a seat for the course. Your spot will now be given to the next student on the waitlist. You will still remain on the waitlist and be notified again in 24 hours if another seat is available for you.

Removing yourself from the waitlist 

If you no longer want to enrol in the course, follow the steps below to remove yourself from the waitlist.

  1. On the “Confirm Waitlist Advancement” task page, click the white “Remove From Waitlist” button below the course section table.
  1. You will be taken to a page titled “Drop Student Course Registration”. Review the information on the page to confirm that you want to remove yourself from this waitlist. 
  2. If you wish to proceed, check the “Confirm” box. 
  3. Click the orange “OK” button at the bottom of the page. You will then see a confirmation message if your change was successful. 

Additional resources

Last updated on June 3, 2024 @12:08 pm