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What's Next? Things to Put on Your Radar for the Start of School

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

7. (Next semester...) How to Work the WAITLISTS

 

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.

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2. The Academic Calendar: What to do and WHEN

Dates and deadlines matter: Bookmark this web-page 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.
  • 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!

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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

 

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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 faculty advisor or your Pan-American Life Student Success 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 under the Course Plan tab: 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.

1. From inside your Progress report, to see options for a given requirement, click the Search button to the right.

2. You can also search via the Course Catalog tab in LORA: Set the filters to show you ONLY classes for which you may be eligible: a) Set the Term, b) set the Location to Main if you usually attend classes in person on campus or set this to Online if you are a member of the City College, c) and set the Academic Level to Undergraduate or Graduate as appropriate.

3. The course-catalog displays every course ever taught, so only click on the grey-bars labeled View Available Sections for… If that wording isn’t there, the course is not being offered. Be sure to click the grey-bar, or you’ll miss the actual sections with their days and times.

4. Inside the course-listing, click on the hyper-linked course-code to see prerequisites and restrictions. If you do not meet the prereqs or the restrictions, it generally means you cannot take the course yet. Consider scheduling the preqrequisite course instead, and discuss with your advisor. 

5. Make note of course capacity in the left of each listing: 5 / 30 / 0 means 5 seats are available out of 30 with no one waiting. If the Section has 0 seats or is labeled Waitlisted, that course is not available. You can indeed Waitlist yourself for courses in your 2nd semester, but be sure to read that section of this guide below. There are some tips for helping to ensure you get your seat.

6. When you find an available section of interest, click the button labeled Add Section to Schedule – depending on how you navigated to the course, you may have to choose the semester again.

7. At this point, you have only Planned the course. You won't be able to self-register until your advisor clears you for registration. It also has to be your time -- check the Registrar's timetable. When discussing classes with your advisor/s over email, refer to the entire course-code/s including the last 3 digits, for example: SUBJ - _### - _ _ _ (NOTE: Sections ending in Y _ _ are only available to students in the City College.)

8. 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. 

9. Check with your advisor if in doubt about anything, listen to their advice, follow-up on any thumbs-up or down feedback they give you through your LORA account's Course Plan, and check to see if all of your work has landed in the right places on your Progress tab. 

10. 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.

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.

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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.

When you're ready, see this link for more information about your Progress tab and graduation.

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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. See this curriculum link in the Bulletin for more about the Loyola Core requirements: https://bulletin.loyno.edu/undergraduate/cross-college-programs#loyola-core
  • Navigate to LORA Self-service through the Single-Sign-On to view class options versus your own degree-plan needs. Use the Course Catalog within your LORA account, and see the drop-down for Course-Type. This will take you to the offerings by category/requirement.
  • 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).
  • Be sure to check how all of these land in your Progress report -- if a Planned course isn't where you thought it would go, investigate further -- search again, or talk to your advisor if you get stuck.

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7. (Next semester...) 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. 

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