UCLA’s highly competitive enrollment system and time-based priority structure have led to a lot of class “trading” among students.
“I would give up everything for Psych 100A.” A common caption of the UCLA Snapchat story.
MyUCLA releases first and second pass enrollment times in the first few weeks of each quarter. Since then, a quiet anxiety has been building, along with a shared realization: staying on track now takes not just a plan, but a strategy.
UCLA’s enrollment system assigns earlier enrollment times to upperclassmen and students with more completed units, with some degree of random assignment. Liam Kang, a first-year electrical engineering student, said that students in the School of Engineering are generally allowed a higher unit cap and some major specific courses come with built-in priority. For example, certain computer science classes during first pass are limited to specific majors, such as computer science students.
But the students with the most priority — seniors, for example — often don’t need that much flexibility. Many are finishing their major requirements and only need a few remaining courses. That gap has created room for informal exchanges. Students with earlier enrollment times can hold spots in competitive classes for those with later passes. At an agreed upon time, one drops the class and the other adds it.
Some of these arrangements happen between friends. Others are openly transactional. On platforms like Snapchat, Instagram and even Yik Yak, students advertise enrollment help, with prices ranging from $50 to nearly $200 per class. Some students even deliberately enroll in high demand courses with the intention of reselling their spots. After securing a seat, they advertise it openly, sometimes in a process that resembles an auction. Seeing these public listings can be anxiety inducing, as the practice has become more visible and widespread.
Selina Yang, a first-year biology major, said her enrollment time “was literally past my bedtime.” Her second pass opened at 10 p.m., and by then, the discussion sections for her preferred cluster theme were already full. Because cluster courses are restricted to students who were in the same cluster the previous quarter, finding someone eligible to hold a seat was especially difficult. She asked in student group chats for help. However, the communication was unreliable. When Yang’s enrollment time came, the student who had agreed to help didn’t respond. In the end, she didn’t get the class.
Experiences like this are understandably frustrating. With little regulation, students have created their own informal system for trading course spots and it doesn’t always work out fairly. Annie Zhao, a first-year biology major, said the practice can make enrollment even more competitive. “A lot of seats get held early by students who are worried they won’t get in,” Zhao said. “So even classes that wouldn’t have been that hard to enroll in fill up quickly. It just turns into a cycle.”
This class “market” among UCLA students deserves greater attention. For now, however, many students are left to navigate the system on their own.
