Choosing Courses

A group of friends smiles at the camera.► First-years: See also Crafting Your First-Year Course Schedule

Table of Contents
Step-by-Step Guide to the Registration Process

The Registration Resources webpage is the university’s central clearinghouse for information regarding course registration.

It includes a calendar, an FAQ page, and step-by-step guides to searching for courses, registering for courses, dropping courses, understanding icons, and more.

The University Registrar’s Office also created two “how-to” registration videos, available on YouTube:

registration

Go to the calendar page of the Registration Resources website for fall and spring course  course registration  dates. Also included on the website are registration FAQs and links to two video tutorials on YouTube:

Reminder: Classes conducted during the drop/add period are regular classes with readings and homework. Be prepared to complete assignments and to participate in each class that you “shop” in order to add to your course schedule.

Choosing courses and Course loads

Some rules of thumb:

  • Aim for 4 or 4.5 credits in your first term; adjusting to Yale will be your “fifth credit”
  • 4, 4.5, or 5 credits are common in subsequent terms
  • Look for balance in:
    • subjects of instruction (no more than 2 in any one department)
    • meeting times (a.m./p.m. and days of the week)
    • course enrollment (small/large)
    • graded work (papers/exams/problem sets
  • Don’t load up on any one of the four elements above
  • Branch out and explore
    • don‘t replicate the typical high school schedule of math + English + science + language + history
    • do take at least one course in a subject you know nothing about or that you’ve always wanted to study. Now’s your chance!
    • do use one or both of the “expiring” Credit/D/Fail options in your first year (to help with your exploring)
  • Consider fulfilling one or two of your distributional requirements, but leave room to explore (see above)
  • Consult with your residential college dean, college adviser, and first-year counselor (FroCo) about your course selections: keep and open mind, and listen to good advice
  • Premed? Seek specialized advice about the health professions.  Prospective engineering major?  Seek specialized advice from the director of undergraduate studies (DUS) in your particular branch of engineering

See also this website’s Crafting Your First-Year Course Schedule page, or the Registration & Course Selection section of the Yale College Website

where to find Course information 

In addition to the information in Yale College Programs of Study, updated course information and many course syllabi are accessible through Yale Course Search.

Yale Course Search contains many helpful features, such as Course Demand Statistics (the number of students who listed any given course on their worksheets on any given day) or Yale College Attributes (a feature that lets you search, say, all WR courses or all L5 courses). For a full view of all of Yale Course Search’s features, scroll down the left-hand column.

Once you begin choosing courses, you will be able to look at course evaluations for some of the classes you are considering.

(Please note that CourseTable is not an official Yale website. Rather, it is entirely student-built and student-supported. As the .com domain name indicates, it is neither hosted on the Yale network nor part of the yale.edu domain. Unofficial sources of course information may contain inaccuracies.)

Some Subject-specific Information
air force and naval rOTC
  • Air Force ROTC (AFROTC)
    • Scholarships are open to both first-years and sophomores who excel in academics and display leadership potential.
  • Naval ROTC (NROTC)First-year students may apply for enrollment in the non-scholarship College Program and then compete for scholarships at the completion of their first year.  If selected for the Scholarship Program students receive full tuition, academic fees, a stipend for textbooks, and a monthly subsistence allowance that increases annually.
Biology 101-104

An explanation of the BIOL 101-104, Foundations of Biology, sequence and who should take it may be found here. Placement information is available here.

Economics, Politics, and Ethics (EP&E)

The Ethics, Politics and Economics major became an open major beginning with the class of 2024, while remaining a highly rigorous, largely seminar-based interdisciplinary major combining the three disciplines of philosophy, political science, and economics.  Additional information is available on the EP&E website.

English

 Please visit the English Department website for introductory course details and preregistration instructions.

Environmental Humanities

Each year, Yale offers dozens of courses about approaching environmental issues from diverse humanities perspectives, including history, literature, religious studies, film and media studies, anthropology, and other programs. Some courses are entirely focused on the environment and the humanities; others approach the environmental humanities as one of several integrated themes.

The Yale Environmental Humanities Newsletter also circulates every Monday to help students and faculty learn about public events happening across the campus. Undergraduates interested in finding out about Yale events in environmental history, politics, ethics, culture and the arts can sign up for the weekly newsletter here.

Email: environmentalhumanities@yale.edu

First-Year Seminars

Updated daily during add/drop period.

Language distributional requirement

A chart with the most common pathways for fulfilling the language distributional requirement is available on the Center for Language Study’s website. It includes information for students beginning a new language, or placing into a previously studied, language at Yale; students whose high school experience was in a language other than English; and transfer students and Eli Whitney students.

Math

 The Math Department website features an FAQ page that includes (1) FAQs for calculus advising and pre-registration, and (2) FAQs for placement  and lottery information.

science (sc) and qr courses without prerequisites
  1. Science (Sc) courses without prerequisites
  2. QR courses without prerequisites
where to find academic year dates

The single most useful tool for finding essential dates for the academic year is the Yale College Calendar with Pertinent Deadlines.  

Another useful sourcesof dates for the academic year is the Yale College Academic Calendar (for registration, vacation, and final examination dates throughout the academic year).

Please pay careful attention to

  • the first day of classes in the fall and spring terms
  • the date and time your preliminary and final course schedules are due 
Thoughts on Sophomore Year and Beyond
  • “Sophomore year is the last time to really explore. As a sophomore you can just enjoy your classes and at the same time think about which direction you might want to go in life.”
  • “It’s OK if you don’t have your entire life planned by now. Most will change their minds anyway.”
  • “Look ahead to junior and senior years because there are some provisions like studying abroad and class load in senior year that should be taken into account.”
  • “Every year plot out a schedule for the next year.”