Monday, November 9 at 8:30 a.m. - Course Match opens
Wednesday, November 18 at 4:00 p.m. - The Special Permission Prerequisite Override Form closes for student requests
Friday, November 20 at 4:00 p.m. - Course Match closes
Students will have the opportunity to adjust their schedule on the following dates:
Phase II Registration - December 10, 11, and 14
Add/Drop Period in the Spring semester
Course Match is an advanced registration tool that students will use for Phase I preregistration. Instead of enrolling them in classes, one at a time, students select the courses they want to take and rank them based on their priorities.
After preregistration closes, the system builds the best possible schedule for each student based on their rankings and course availability.
Releasing Holds
Students must have their holds released by their advisors to view courses and begin preregistration in Course Match. Double majors must have their holds released by their two advisors.
Until the student is released from all holds, all courses will be grayed-out and locked, with the message "Ineligible course due to missing requirements." After all holds have been released, the student can begin selecting courses. Only courses that require special permission, a prerequisite override, or are class-year restricted will be grayed-out and locked.
Students rank their courses
Students select the courses they want to take and rank them based on their academic interests and priorities. Course Match reads rank as strength of preference, so their rankings should reflect how much they want/need to take the course, in relation to the other courses.
Departments set enrollment rules
Departments establish rules and preferences set in the Course Planning Interface (CPI) and through the Major and Correlate Preference Form. Prerequisites, special permissions, class-year limits, and seat limits are respected when Course Match assigns student schedules. Major and correlate preferences give students with those majors and/or correlates a boost to improve their chances of enrollment.
Students have a scheduling budget
Each student is given a budget that gets them into courses. Freshmen receive a base-budget; sophomores receive approximately 10% greater budget; juniors receive approximately 50% greater budget; Seniors receive the highest budget, approximately 250% greater (these budget percentages are subject to change). Students with more seniority are not guaranteed placement, but they have a better chance of getting a schedule with one or more of their top ranked courses.
Courses are assigned a cost, based on demand
Once all rankings are submitted and preregistration closes, the computation begins. Course Match looks at how many students want each course compared to how many seats are available. Courses with higher demand effectively cost more, while courses with available seats cost little or nothing. Course Match uses the students' budgets to get them into those courses.
Course Match assigns schedules
Course Match evaluates all possible conflict-free schedules for each student, beyond the 8 sample schedules students see on the website. Instead of filling courses one at a time, Course Match orders these schedules based on how well they match the student’s rankings and then assigns the best schedule that fit within their budget.
Course Match is designed to build conflict-free schedules for students that rely less on timing and access advantages. Instead of traditional first-come first-serve that can give students with earlier or faster access, all students submit their preferences together before receiving their schedules. Course Match then looks at student preferences, their budgets, and course demand to figure out the best possible schedule each student could get with these constraints.
The most critical step for students is to rank their courses based on personal preference and academic requirement. This includes special permission courses and courses with prerequisite, which should be ranked how they want in relation to other courses. Their rankings should not be based on perceived demand for a course – doing so could skew the results of course placement.
The Special Permission/Prerequisite Override Jotform is has returned to offering 2 options for Special Permission: Instructors may approve or deny the student's request. Enrollment is not guaranteed, and students should rank the course how they want it in relation to their other course selections. Students can still delete approved Special Permission and Prerequisite Override courses from their selections in Course Match, which may affect their final schedule. If Special Permission is granted to more students than there are seats available, Course Match will honor the seat limit and not all students will get enrolled.
Please note: We will continue offering the Special Permission Departmental Lists.
Please note: The prerequisite approval process has not changed. You may approve or deny the request.
The credit load that Course Match tries to place students has a default set to 4.0 units, instead of 3.5 units. Students can still adjust this setting, lowering it to 3.5 units or increasing it up to 4.9 units. If a student does not change their preference, Course Match will not enroll them in more than 4.0 units.
Courses that students are not eligible to take are now visible in Course Match, but grayed-out (e.g., Special Permission courses, courses with prerequisites, or courses not available to a specific class year). Any course they are ineligible to take will have a course tag at the end indicating why the student cannot select the course. If all courses are grayed-out, the student likely still has a hold.
In Course Match, abbreviated course tags at the end of some course titles help students quickly see whether a course requires special permission, has a prerequisite, or is reserved for a specific class year. Here are what the tags mean, and what they’ll look like:
PQ = Prerequisite Required (AFRS-255-51PQ)
SPRD = Special Permission Required (ART-399-51SPRD)
FR = Course Reserved for First-Year Students (DRAM-103-51FR)
SO = Course Reserved for Sophomore Students (DRAM-103-51SO)
JR = Course Reserved for Junior Students (DRAM-103-51JR)
SR = Course Reserved for Senior Students (DRAM-103-51SR)
Courses may include multiple tags if it has a class-year limit and Special Permission and/or a Prerequisite Override:
EDUC-361-51JRPQ: Prerequisite Required, and reserved for Junior Students
ASIA-194-51FRSPRD: Special Permission Required, and reserved for First-Year Students
The second half of all year-long courses will require special permission to ensure proper registration.
We are asking students to select no more than 25 courses in Course Match. Staying within this limit helps the computation run smoothly and ensures preregistration results can be processed and released on time.
If a student selects more than 25 courses, we may find we need to drop them from their lowest ranked course to help computation speed.
The following tools help you set rules, limits, and preferences to your enrollment.
This tool allows you to set class-year restrictions for your courses. When students preregister in Course Match, you might reserve a certain amount of seats for seniors, or set a course as available for all first-year students, sophomores, and juniors only.
This form can offer certain declared majors or correlates a higher chance of placement in select courses. Placement heavily depends on how a student has ranked that course, but offering preference will increase the likelihood of getting enrolled over non-majors with similar rankings.
Layering restrictions between the CPI and the Major and Correlate Preference Form helps manage enrollment prior to preregistration to also help reduce the need for Special Permissions.
Case Study: To reduce Special Permissions Jotform requests, you could restrict a Senior Seminar as “seniors-only” through the CPI, then add a major preference so that seniors in your department or program have a very high likelihood of getting enrolled. This would not prevent other senior majors from getting enrolled, but if the course is ranked similarly between the major and non-major, the major selected in the form will be prioritized.
Through this form, students initiate requests for instructor approval to be considered for enrollment in a course with Special Permission or with prerequisites that they do not satisfy.
For Special Permissions requests, we have returned to using 2 Special Permission options. Faculty will now be able to:
Approve Special Permission Request
When a student receives approval for a Special Permission course, the Registrar’s Office will add the course to their selections in Course Match. The student still must rank the course, and they should rank it how they want it in relation to the other courses they ranked. Approval does not guarantee enrollment.
If Special Permission is granted to more students than there are seats available, Course Match will honor the seat limit and not all students will get enrolled.
2. Deny Special Permission Request
The instructor does not want to give the student any special permission to enroll in that course.
For Prerequisite Override requests, instructors may choose to Approve or Deny a student’s request. Students must then select and rank the course.
A few more things to know about Prerequisites during the Course Match implementation:
Prerequisites are a great way to avoid requiring all students to get special permission. If you can define Vassar courses as prerequisites, then the only approvals you’ll need to evaluate are for students that did not already meet the prerequisites.
Approving an override makes the student eligible for placement. It does not guarantee enrollment.
This Google sheet is an alternative to the Special Permission Jotform. Although it’s preferable for students to use the Jotform, you may submit student names for enrollment in courses that require special permission. Use the sheet on your department's tab to submit the following information:
Students’ first and last names
Students’ 999###
Course information
You may add any notes you want to convey to the Registrar's Office regarding the course (e.g., "Please raise cap of course to accommodate list").
As an Instructor:
Review and act on Special Permission/Prereq Override Jotform requests by the end of preregistration on November.
If needed, submit the Special Permission - Departmental Lists Google Form through your Administrative Assistant (up to 25 students per form).
Confirm course restrictions in CPI through your department’s Administrative Assistant (caps, year-restrictions, etc.).
Decide whether to submit the Major & Correlate Preference Form through your department or program.
If you are also an Advisor:
Meet with students to review course selections.
Release advising holds promptly in AskBanner (both advisors for double majors).
Encourage students to:
Rank honestly based on their academic requirements and preferences.
Add more courses than needed (up to 25 courses).
What do the ranking categories mean?
The ranking categories – Favorite, Great, Good, and Acceptable – are meant to reflect how well each course fits the student’s academic needs and preferences, not to rate their feelings about the quality of the course itself.
Favorite: The student’s absolute top choice (Only one allowed). This is the class that they need/want the most above all others. This category is optional, so if they don’t have a single favorite, just leave it blank and place their top 2 or 3 courses at the top of the Great category instead.
Great: These courses closely align with the student’s top academic needs and preferences (Select as many as they like).
Good: These courses somewhat align with the student’s top academic needs and preferences (Select as many as they like).
Acceptable: Courses that the student is willing to take and could fit into their schedule, even if those courses are not their top choices (Select as many as they like).
Ranking is more powerful than class year priority, but class year priority is still in place. Students with more seniority are not guaranteed placement, but they have a better chance of getting a schedule with one or more of their top ranked courses.
This is because each student receives a "budget" that helps get them into courses depending on their class year. Freshmen receive a base-budget; sophomores receive approximately 10% greater budget; juniors receive approximately 25% greater budget; Seniors receive the highest budget, approximately 50% greater (these budget percentages are subject to change).
However, rankings still matter most. If a senior ranks a course low, that signals to Course Match that the course is not a high priority for them. If a first-year student ranks a course very highly, Course Match will prioritize trying to place them in that course — even though they have a smaller budget.
A few weeks before preregistration begins, watch for an email about the Prerequisite Review process. After prerequisites are verified, it will be entered into Banner and pulled into Course Match.
A student who has met the prerequisite for a course can immediately select and rank it without needing any further approvals.
A student who has not met a prerequisite can see the course in Course Match, but it will be grayed out. If they want to take the course, they must submit a Special Permission Prerequisite Override Jotform.
The instructor will either approve or deny this request.
An approved form allows the student to view and rank the course in Course Match
Note: Approval does not guarantee enrollment.
How does Course Match process cross-listed courses?
For cross-listed courses, seats are divided between departments, and will hold true to those limits. Students are advised to add all cross-listed sections and rank them closely in their selections to increase the likelihood of registration. Course Match has conflicts embedded to not allow students to be registered for more than 1 of the cross-listed courses.
Does ranking more classes reduce a student’s chance of getting their top-priority courses?
No. Adding more options never hurts. It simply gives the algorithm more valid schedules to choose from, which increases the likelihood of building a complete schedule with the top-ranked courses included.
A student has expressed concern about being registered for ZZZ-999-99. What is this course?
They recently requested and received special permission for a course. At the time their request was approved, they had not yet made their course selections. To ensure the permission-only course appeared in Course Match, a placeholder course (ZZZ-999-99) may have been added for them. Once they’ve entered their actual course selections, they should ensure they have deleted the placeholder course.
Why does my 0-unit course show as 0.1 credits in Course Match, but in the Schedule of Classes it still shows as 0 units?
In Course Match, all courses must be assigned a greater than “0” credit value, so courses that are normally “0” units at Vassar temporarily appear as “0.1” during the preregistration process. This is only for system compatibility. Once registration is finalized, the enrolled courses will reflect the correct number of units.
Can I see how many students ranked my course?
Not during preregistration. Neither students nor faculty can see how many students ranked a course. This is intentional. Course Match works best when students rank honestly based on their own preferences, not perceived demand.
What forms should I know about and how do they work?
Major and Correlate Preference Form
This Google Form will allow departments and programs to indicate enrollment preference for declared majors and correlates.
In addition to the regular course detail collection process (CPI), this supplemental form identifies how to apply preferences for your courses. Course Match will then give those students a stronger chance of placement compared to others.
Special Permission Prerequisite Override Jotform - Due November 18 at 4:00 p.m.
A student may submit this form if they are interested in taking a course that is Special Permission or a course with prerequisites that they do not fulfill.
This Jotform will indicate if a course requires Special Permission or a Prerequisite Override.
Please note that we have returned to using 1 Special Permission approval option.
For more information on this form, check out the FAQs below.
Special Permission - Departmental Lists Google Sheet - Due November 18 at 4:00 p.m.
This Google sheet is an alternative to the Special Permission Jotform. Although it’s preferable for students to use the Jotform, you may submit student names for enrollment in courses that require special permission. Use the sheet on your department's tab to submit the following information:
Students’ first and last names
Students’ 999###
Course information
You may add any notes you want to convey to the Registrar's Office regarding the course (e.g., "Please raise cap of course to accommodate list").
How can I set up my course to limit the need for Special Permission?
You have the option to layer restrictions on a course, which could eliminate a Special Permission requirement. For example, you may limit seats to seniors in the CPI and give preference to majors via the Major and Correlate Preference Form to ensure seniors are enrolled in a senior seminar.
How does a student know if a course requires Special Permission or a Prerequisite Override?
In Course Match, Special Permission courses and courses with Prerequisites are now visible, but grayed-out until they receive approval, either through their name being on a department/program list or through the Special Permission JotForm.
To help students quickly determine if they need to submit a Special Permission Prerequisite Override Jotform, the course will have a tag at the end of the course code in Course Match. If the course requires Special Permission, it will have the tag “SP” at the end of the course code. If the course requires a Prerequisite Override, it will have the tag “PQ” at the end of the course code.
Students may also refer to the Schedule of Classes that also includes the list of available courses.
Where can students find the Special Permission and Prerequisite Override Jotform?
Students will be able to find the Special Permission and Prerequisite Override Jotform in Course Match where they preregister, on Vassar’s Course Match information website, as well as the Registrar Forms webpage.
Can faculty submit lists of students instead of relying on the Special Permission Jotform?
Yes. However, students should use the jotform whenever possible. Faculty and Administrative Assistants may submit lists for Special Permission courses via the Special Permission - Departmental Lists Google Form.
Lists must include the student’s name and 999#. Students will still be able to remove this course on Course Match.
What is the Major & Correlate Preference Form?
It is a supplemental form used in addition to the CPI that lets departments and programs indicate enrollment preference for declared majors and correlates in a specific course.
Submitting major/correlate preferences increases the likelihood that students with a declared major or correlate are placed into courses most critical to their program of study. It can also reduce or even eliminate the need for Special Permission, meaning fewer Jotform requests for instructors.
Example: Your department offers a Senior Seminar, so you might set a class-year limit (in CPI) for seniors only and also submit the preference form to indicate that certain majors receive preference. Non-seniors would not be able to enroll, and majors would have the strongest likelihood of placement. This will not prevent a non-major from enrolling; it just gives an advantage to majors.
This form does not guarantee majors/correlates a seat. Rather, major and correlate preferences give students a boost, but placement still heavily depends on how a student has ranked that course. Non-majors may still be placed in the course, but they will have a lower likelihood of getting enrolled assuming they rank similarly.
What if the course in the Major & Correlate Preference Form is cross-listed?
A separate form must be submitted for each course code, and you should include the same majors and correlate sequences on each form.
Example: INTL-238-01 cross-listed with ASIA/ENST/GEOG requires forms for INTL-238-01, ASIA-238-01, ENST-238-01, and GEOG-238-01. Departments should coordinate to ensure the same preferences are submitted across listings.
What are the most important things we should advise students?
1. Rank by priority, not probability. If a course is required for their major, it should be ranked higher. If a course strongly interests them, it should also be ranked higher. They should not lower a ranking because they believe they have a better chance of getting in.
· Example: Even if your advisee receives Special Permission for a course, they still must select and rank that course in Course Match according to their true preference. They should not assume that receiving approval increases the likelihood that they are enrolled. When Course Match runs its final computation, the student’s rankings inform how much they want to be placed in that course.
2. Know that approvals don’t guarantee enrollment. Receiving Special Permission or a Prerequisite Override does not guarantee enrollment. Your advisee should rank that course based on how much they want it, in relation to other courses.
3. Ranking is more powerful than class year priority, but class year priority is still in place. For this reason, no matter one's class-year, students must rank all courses based on their genuine preferences. If a senior ranks a course low, that tells Course Match they don’t care as much about getting placed than another course they ranked high. Similarly, a first-year who ranks a course high, Course Match works a lot harder to place them in that course, despite class year priority.
4. Select enough courses for Course Match to create a full schedule. Students should be encouraged to choose and rank more courses than the minimum Course Match requires, up to 25 courses. This gives Course Match the flexibility to build a full, conflict-free schedule. Students who select the bare minimum, or choose nearly all courses with time-conflicts, are much less likely to end up with a complete schedule.
5. Add all cross-listed sections and rank them closely together. The seats for cross-listed courses are divided between departments and programs, and will hold true to those limits. Therefore, students are advised to add all cross-listed sections and rank them closely together in their selections to increase the likelihood of registration. Course Match has conflicts embedded to not allow students to be registered for more than 1 of the cross-listed courses.
In Ask Banner the advisor clicks "Release_Holds.” Then they locate the student by their first and last name + 999###, and click “Release Hold” next to the student they wish to give access to Course Match preregistration.
Once released, the student can immediately enter Course Match and begin the preregistration process.
What happens if I release a hold, but then a student wants to make changes to their rankings? Can they change rankings without consulting me?
Once a student has met with you and their advising hold has been released, they may update their course selections and rankings in Course Match as often as they wish until the preregistration window closes.
If a student submits their rankings and later decides to add or reorder courses, they can simply return to Course Match, make changes, and resubmit. No additional advisor approval or advising meeting is required after the initial hold is released.
This flexibility is meant to encourage students to revisit their rankings for the best possible initial schedule before Phase II.
If your advisee is currently in their Junior Year Abroad (JYA) but anticipate returning to campus in the following semester, they must have their holds released. If your advisee is currently on-campus, but is going to study abroad the following semester, you do not need to release their hold because they will not take courses at Vassar that semester.
Encourage students to use tools such as:
Schedule Brewer to filter courses taking place that semester and visualize various class schedules, even if they conflict with each other.
Degree Works to plan their schedule around major requirements and decide how to rank courses in Course Match. For example, a student may need to rank a class as “Favorite” to meet their major requirements instead of another class that deeply interests them.
Vassar Course Catalogue provides detailed information about each course, and may help students make informed decisions when planning their schedule. Remind them to confirm they are viewing the correct academic year, since Googling “Vassar course catalogue” may bring up older versions, and that not all courses shown in the current catalogue are going to be taught every semester.