Victims of the hell that is Columbia class registration on SSOL, your experience is about to get a little bit easier. Triumphantly presented a few days ago by Barry Kane, God of the Registrar, SSOL now boasts a wish list AND a wait list, which Bwog learned are two vitally different things.

The wish list was described by Kane as a “shopping cart” of sorts, and allows you to group all the classes you’re interested in taking together on one convenient page. There is *no* automatic movement on the wish list, however, and you have to manually move classes from your wish list to your registered schedule. The classes on your wish list appear in a soothing shade of green, and there’s an option to join the wait list for any class on your wish list, if there’s one available. An easy way to group all your “maybe” classes together, but nothing game-changing.

The wait list, though, is where the magic really happens. View the glory below, and an explanation after the jump.

The wish list, with wait list options on the right

If you didn’t read Barry’s email, the wait list essentially allows you to put yourself on a wait list for full classes, and be automatically registered once there’s space, without having to manually scramble to be the first one registered when someone drops. A.K.A., say goodbye to constantly refreshing your SSOL page, frantically checking for a free spot in that intermediate Spanish course; no more switching-classes-with-a-friend-at-the-same-second-deals. Columbia students can add up to three classes at a time to their wait list, which have the power to be automatically added to your schedule when a spot opens up in the course. Priority is determined by timestamp, not seniority — i.e., a sophomore who added a class to their wait list a day before a senior did will receive a spot in that class sooner (if the professor chose a default setting), and will be notified by email when they got into the course.

Professors can also opt for a custom self-manage option, where they choose the individual students to be moved from the wait list. With either option, you won’t have to be logged onto SSOL, or even at your computer, for the system to register you. To make the wait list actually functional, normal limits on concurrent classes and maximum credits are suspended when using the list. The wait list will go live at 10:30 tomorrow morning, so get all your stickies and call numbers ready! Barnard students will still have to do all their scheduling via eBear, but the wait list is open to Barnard as well, and works largely the same way, albeit some different vocabulary.

The wait list isn’t available for all courses, so don’t get *too* excited yet. Just moderately excited at being able to leave your room while still waiting on a class, rather than staying in to hang out with SSOL.