School is starting soon, and there are some things coming up that you can only do in the first two weeks of each semester. There are also some additional upcoming items of which to be aware. Click on the links below to learn more. If you have any questions, email any of the advisors listed in your LORA account, or the head of your program or department, or the college-level advisors in your Dean's office.
Finding Contact Information on www.loyno.edu
- Your primary advisor/s will be listed in your LORA account. LORA "Self-service" is found in the Single-Sign-On.
- Every department webpage has a Faculty/Staff tab that gives the complete contact listing for everyone in the department. Try Loyola’s VSW (Very Searchable Website) by typing the name of your department into the Search Box (also at the top of every Loyola webpage), and follow the links…
- To search for faculty or staff by first or last name, click here: https://www.loyno.edu/search/people
BUT FIRST
Each college has a one-stop-shop to help with how to get things done at Loyola... Everything can be done electronically -- sometimes an electronic form is needed via email, other times, just the email itself! Save yourself time and effort, and please bookmark your college's site today.
College of Arts and Sciences: http://cas.loyno.edu/cas-forms-online
College of Business: http://business.loyno.edu/forms
College of Music and Media: http://cmm.loyno.edu/online-forms
Always put your name and ID# in the Subject of the email when requesting assistance or information.
1. Updated Advisor Assignments
2. The Academic Calendar: What to do and WHEN
3. Dropping versus Withdrawing from Classes
4. Your First "Solo" Registration for Next Semester
5. Degree-tracking aka How to Graduate
6. Finding the Classes that can Fulfill your Loyola Core Requirements
1. Advisor-Transition
After the Drop-classes deadline, departments and programs may make updates to student advisor-advisee assignments:
You may be reassigned from your original advisor (who prepared your first schedule) to your next or permanent faculty-advisor or departmental-advisor.
You can find the name of your current, new, and/or additional advisor/s (if assigned) in your LORA account through the Single-Sign-On. Look for the "LORA Self-service" tile.
Some advisor assignments will NOT change, including, but not limited to these examples: If your original advisor also happened to be someone from your department, you may still be assigned to the same person. If you haven't declared your Major yet, and you're happily enrolled in the Exploratory Studies program, you may still be assigned to the same person. If you’re in the Honors program, Dr. Peterson will still appear in your advisor list, too.
2. The Academic Calendar: What to do and WHEN
Dates and deadlines matter: Bookmark this webpage that houses the Academic Calendars for every semester so you never miss a deadline or an opportunity. The calendar includes dates related to Adding, Dropping, Withdrawing, refunds, grades, holidays, final exams, and more...
- Just one quick example... this would be an excellent time to check your "final" schedule in your LORA account in your LORA account through the Single-Sign-On. Look for the "LORA Self-service" tile.
- Make sure that there are no "extra" classes in there -- if you were waitlisted for a class, you may have gotten in without realizing it. You should Drop it immediately if you no longer need it.
- Missing a class? You can generally ADD classes to your schedule until the end of the 1st week of classes.
- Too many classes or have what you feel is the wrong class? You can generally DROP classes until the end of the 2nd week of school. (Roughly 15 credits per semester is the official recommendation: 15 credits x 2 semesters x 4 years is the 120 credits minimum needed for most undergraduate degree-plans...)
- Whether you need to Add or Drop in this special time, reach out asap to your faculty advisor for help completing these actions.
Important Note: Once the DROP deadline passes, the only way out of the class is via Withdrawal. Please see the next section!
3. Dropping versus Withdrawing from classes
There are 3 chances to refine your schedule each semester:
- When the semester starts, students usually have the first week of classes to continue ADDING courses. Always check the Academic Calendars to ensure you're working with the correct dates -- there are sub-sessions within the semester (1st and last 8-week sessions, for example) that have their own, different, key dates. If in doubt, check directly with the Registrar, registrar@loyno.edu
- Typically students can also DROP courses through the first and second week of school (again, beware of the sub-sessions -- their deadlines are usually much shorter). When students DROP courses, the courses do not appear on their transcripts.
- If a student stays in a course past the official Drop-deadline (whether it was for the regular semester or for a sub-session), but does not wish to finish the class for any reason, there is only one option remaining, which is to Withdraw from the course.
- The course WILL appear on transcripts with a "grade" of "W," but does NOT factor into GPA calculations.
- Withdrawals are an email away. See your colleges "forms" page above or below. Always put your full name and your campus-wide ID# in the Subject of any email you write at Loyola -- it will help us help you faster!
- The deadline for Withdrawals is near the end of the semester or the session (check the Academic Calendars for the exact dates and for sub-session dates).
- This allows students to check their near-final grade for a class and make an educated decision about whether there are enough opportunities remaining in the class to positively impact their grade, or whether it would be better to Withdraw in order to protect their GPAs.
College of Arts and Sciences: http://cas.loyno.edu/cas-forms-online
College of Business: http://business.loyno.edu/forms
College of Music and Media: http://cmm.loyno.edu/online-forms
4. Registration-Advising & Scheduling
Your original advisor will have helped make your schedule for you. Going forward, the process is a little different.
- Course-offerings for next semester will appear in LORA: This usually happens mid-semester. Check the Academic Calendars for the start of Registration-advising, and see this Registration page for other important dates, including when you can personally register, how to deal with registration holds, tips for using LORA, as well as additional links to advising information, student success, accessibility services and accommodations, tutoring, coaching, workshops, and more. These are great pages to bookmark.
- Put some of these dates on your calendar, and well in advance of Registration-advising, plan a consultation with your departmental advisor. Many advisors send a "sign-up" email to their students -- check your Loyola email regularly to ensure you don't miss an invitation.
- Before your meeting, plan a “working schedule” to propose to your advisor via your LORA account.
- A “working schedule” means ensuring there are no issues with the courses you propose, including no time-conflicts (classes that overlap each other), no prerequisite issues (courses that require that the student had a preparatory class in advance of the desired course), and lastly, that there are actually seats available in the desired course/s.
- After meeting with your advisor, if your schedule is approved (or upon revising your schedule as needed), your advisor will “unlock” your registration module, and then you will register yourself through LORA.
- You will also need to accept each semester’s official “Registration Agreement” before you’ll be allowed to register, as well as affirm your emergency contact information.
Most "holds" will need to be resolved prior to registration (see the Notifications icon on your splash page in your LORA account). Some holds do NOT restrict registration (Transcript Holds), but others do. Contact the office/s listed to try and resolve your hold as soon as possible -- make this a priority. Delaying may cause you to miss out on classes you wanted to take.
BUT WAIT! How will you know what courses to choose? Presenting…
5. Degree-tracking (How to Graduate)
Degree-tracking just means keeping a record of the courses you take, matched to the requirements they fulfill. Most programs display a digital and interactive version of a student's degree-requirements in their LORA account under the Progress tab. The Progress tab matches the courses you take to the requirements the courses fulfill, but it also offers lists of eligible courses per requirement, assists in requirement searches, and displays actual degree-progress, credit-counts, GPAs, and more.
These are also written out in the annual Bulletin and the Bulletin Archives according to college and catalog year.
Most important of all: Do not wait to set up the Registration-advising meeting with your advisor -- delaying may cause you to miss out on classes you wanted to take.
6. Finding Loyola Core Classes
How to find classes that fulfill the Loyola Core "Knowledge/Values" requirements
- Some classes in your degree-plan are very specific "named" courses like ENGLT122 or SCIET129. You must take an exact class to satisfy the requirement. Other items are categories, like "Creative Arts and Cultures" or "Writing About Literature." For the category-classes, you can often choose between several courses in several departments: Follow the instructions below to navigate to lists of eligible classes for these requirements.
- Navigate to LORA Self-service through the Single-Sign-On to view classes versus your own degree-plan or follow this link to get to the public-facing course catalog (you don't have to login to see the schedule of classes): https://loyno-ss.colleague.elluciancloud.com/Student/Courses
- Make sure you have the correct Term selected.
- Use the filters to zero in on courses for undergraduates or graduates; by location (whether you're an campus-based student or an online student in City College); times of day; by Subject or by Loyola Core requirement, and more.
- As a general rule of thumb, "A" coded courses, for example, SUBJ-A-###, almost never count for the Loyola Core (there are a few exceptions in the Science Majors and in Honors). Check with your advisor if in doubt, listen to their advice, follow-up on any "thumbs-down" feedback they give you through your LORA account's planned courses, and check to see if all of your work has landed in the right places on your Progress tab.
- Once school starts, clean up your Course Plan -- eliminate any Planned courses that you will not sign up for in a given term so that your Progress report remains accurate.
7. How to Work the WAITLISTS
Loyola's new database automatically contacts students who have progressed to the next available seat. The student will be given a time period to self-register or to reach out to an advisor for assistance if any difficulties occur. If an ineligible student is on a waitlist, the system will not enroll them automatically. It will help to understand why any difficulties might occur in case those situations can be avoided completely: If self-registration is not possible for one of the below reasons, and if resolution does not occur in the time-period allowed, the database will automatically pass over students who are ineligible to take their waitlisted course, and assign the section-seat to the next eligible student on the waitlist. Faculty and staff with advising responsibilities should verify that students are actually eligible to enroll for a seat in the section prior to any advisement encouraging the use of waitlists.
The system will not process a waitlist enrollment in the following situations:
- The student is on the waitlist, but their advisor has not cleared them to register, if required
- The student is on the waitlist, but they do not meet the prerequisites or restrictions for the section
- The student is on the waitlist, but they have university holds on their record that prevent them from registering
- The student is on the waitlist, but is already enrolled in a different section of the same course
- The student is on the waitlist, but has a time conflict with the waitlisted section
- The student is on the waitlist, but there is no room in their schedule to add more credit hours without going over maximum (overload)
- The student is on the waitlist for both a lecture and for a lab -- these courses have to be registered simultaneously, so if the lecture comes through, but the lab is still waiting, it will skip over the student.
Students who DO get seats from the waitlists WILL be notified by email.