Our online courses are designed first and foremost for matriculated students in online master's programs. However, some online courses are designated as open to both online and on-campus students, and some are restricted to on-campus students only. Remember that the university course schedule doesn't indicate which online courses are open to which groups of students. To find this information, you have to consult the Reading Department's course schedules (see the home page for the current schedules).
We do allow matriculated students in our on-campus master's programs, as well as non-degree students in Reading, to be placed on waitlists for online courses on a space-available basis. Students can request to be placed on the waitlist for one course only; their placement on this waiting list is determined by the date and time that the request was received.
Matriculated students in our on-campus MS programs have priority over non-degree students for all wait-lists. Once seats have been offered to matriculated students, they will be offered to non-degree students strictly according to the date/time of emails requesting a course.
Then, as the start of a new semester approaches, if an online course has not been filled by students eligible for it, seats will be offered to students on the waitlist, starting with the first one on the list.
The procedure for requesting that your name be placed on a waitlist for an online course is as follows:
> email your request to Trudy Walp (trudy@chestercreekpress.com) as soon after the date/time that waitlists are available. These dates/times will be posted on the home page of the Reading Dept website. No early-bird requests will be accepted--if you make a request early, it will be returned to you, and you'll have to make another one.
> students may request to be placed on a waitlist for ONE course only (if you request more than one course, your email will be returned for you to choose the one you want, and then the date/time of the second email will determine your place on the list).
> it is your responsibility to check that the course applies to your degree program (so be sure to check with your advisor).
> please be sure to include a valid email address (remember that if Trudy Walp emails you with permission to register for an online course, she'll use this email address). Be sure that this email address is current, and it isn't bouncing emails back because the mailbox is full.
> requests for waitlists will ONLY be accepted via email to Trudy Walp. No phone calls, no snail mail, and definitely not to anyone else but Trudy (that is, don't call or email Linda Papa or Mary Unser, and especially not the instructor for an online course). Contrary to the note on the University's course schedule, which says you can take a given course with 'permission of instructor,' this doesn't apply to our online courses. Online course instructors cannot give out course permission numbers--they don't even have them!
Email requests will be acknowledged but no further correspondence will occur until the point that waitlists are being used to fill online courses, provided the online course(s) has space available. That means there will not be any correspondence until close to the start of the new semester. The only email you will get is if you have been selected for an online course--no emails are sent if you aren't selected for a seat.
Please do not email to check on the status of a course and its waitlist. Please do not contact the Reading Department or online instructors as neither have course permission numbers for online courses, nor do they keep the waiting lists for online courses. (We stopped waitlists before because of constant pestering, and we'll do that again if the system is abused). The only allowable emails will be to notify Trudy Walp of a change in email address.
Remember that being on a waitlist for an online course carries no guarantee whatsoever that even the first person on the list will get a seat. So always register for on campus courses first. Treat the waitlist the same way as you would trying to get a stand-by seat on an aircraft that leaves earlier than the one for which you have a confirmed reservation.
