Department registration guidelines

Course registration is the responsibility of each student. If you are in a special situation (ie. trying to graduate in 2 terms), please contact our undergraduate advisor (anthua@uvic.ca). Instructors cannot resolve registration problems and are not responsible for managing student registration issues.

Waitlists

If you’re on a waitlist, you must keep attending all lectures. We can’t control how the waitlist moves, and we can’t guarantee that you’ll get a spot—this depends on how many seats open up and your position on the list.

Most courses don’t end up full, and we know waiting can be stressful. But if you’re serious about joining the class, stay on the waitlist and keep attending until the add deadline.

If you receive a registration offer and don’t accept it before the deadline, you’ll be moved to the bottom of the waitlist automatically.

Courses with labs/tutorials

To be properly registered in a course with lab or tutorial sections, you must be enrolled in both the lecture and a lab/tutorial.

You should not register in a lab or tutorial section.
Keep attending all lectures while you’re on the waitlist.
Do not attend any labs or tutorials until you’re officially registered in both components.
To stay on track, visit the instructor during office hours to learn what lab/tutorial work is being assigned. Work will not be graded until you’re fully registered.

If you manage to register in the lecture before the 100% drop deadline but can’t get into a lab/tutorial section, see the policy on being registered in the lecture section only.

After the 100% drop deadline, if you’re offered a seat in the lecture, only accept it if you can register in both the lecture and the lab/tutorial.

You must be officially registered in the lecture section and a lab/tutorial section. If only one lab/tutorial section works for your schedule and it is full, then you have 2 options:

Wait to see if a spot opens.
Change your schedule to make another lab/tutorial section work.

If you can’t register in a lab/tutorial by the 100% course drop deadline, you should drop the course. Otherwise, you run the risk of needing to drop it during the 50% drop period. You must be officially registered in a lab/tutorial section by the course add deadline to take the course

This should never happen. You must register for the lecture first, and then add the corresponding lab or tutorial section.

If we find that a student is enrolled in a lab/tutorial without being registered (or while only being waitlisted) in the lecture, the student will be removed from the lab/tutorial section.

Prerequisite waiver requests

Course prerequisites exist to make sure you have the background you need to succeed. If you think your previous coursework (or a combination of courses) gives you skills equivalent to the listed prerequisites, you can request a prerequisite waiver.

You can find the waiver form and more information here.

Please email the form to the undergraduate program assistant at jindra@uvic.ca

Missing prerequisites

If you are missing a course prerequisite and have not submitted a prerequisite waiver request, we will email you to request one. If you have not received permission by the 100% drop deadline, we may drop you from the course.

Increasing the enrollment cap

Requests to increase a course’s enrollment cap are rare and approved only in exceptional situations. If the course includes a lab, approvals are even less likely and require the department chair’s permission.

Why requests may not be approved:

Safety and space limits: If the classroom or lab doesn’t have enough seats, desk space, or equipment, the cap cannot be raised.
Lab or tutorial sections: If the course includes labs or tutorials, all instructors for those sections must agree to take additional students and adjust their workloads. In some cases, the main course instructor may also need to take on extra responsibilities.

In short: increasing the cap is possible, but only when space, safety, and instructor capacity all allow it.

Registering in directed or individually supervised studies

Discuss the terms of the course with a supervisor, fill out the Undergraduate Pro Forma Course Registration form, sign and email to the undergraduate program assistant at jindra@uvic.ca. Our office will collect the necessary signatures and send on to Academic Advising. More on directed studies here.

To be eligible for a directed studies course you must have declared Honours or Major in Anthropology, have fourth-year standing, cumulative GPA of 5.5 and minimum GPA of 6.5 in 300 and 400 level Anthropology courses.

Auditing a course

Interested in auditing a course? Here’s what you need to know:

Space matters:
You can only audit a course if it still has open seats. If the class is full, audit requests can’t be approved.

What auditing looks like:
Auditors are expected to attend lectures only. This usually means:

Not joining class discussions
Not using instructor or class time for questions
Not attending labs

Your instructor may allow exceptions in special cases.

How to request to audit:

Download and complete the Undergraduate Auditor Class Entry form.
Email the completed form to the Undergraduate Program Assistant at jindra@uvic.ca

Once your instructor approves the request, your form will be forwarded to the Office of the Registrar (OREG). You’ll be officially added after the regular add deadline—but you should still start attending right away so you don’t fall behind.