As registration time nears at Baruch College, some students have been blessed with earlier enrollment times, while others have been pushed to the back of the line without any explanation as to why. Baruch needs to be transparent and specify how enrollment appointments are decided. 

Students are only able to register for classes on the date and time of their enrollment appointment which is listed on CUNYfirst. 

This date and time however, is provided with no additional context as to why it was given. The office of the Registrar’s website does not specify any information regarding how they decided which students get earlier enrollment appointments and which don’t.

This leaves students with later enrollment appointments wondering why they deserved the date and time that they received. Students shouldn’t be left in the dark on something that will greatly impact their schedule in the following semester. After all, there is a direct relationship between the quality of a student’s schedule and that of their academic experience.

Whether this process is subjected to a random algorithm or based off certain criteria that students meet needs to be made clear.

 When they don’t have a preferable registration day or time, students panic, as the remaining classes are taught by professors with unsatisfactory reviews on RateMyProfessors.com or class times that don’t fit their schedule. Students then quickly realize that beggars can’t be choosers. They swallow their pride and like malnourished vultures, swooping down and scavenging the leftover scraps of the nearly empty carcass that is the CUNYfirst “Search for Classes” webpage.

This horror story is a bitter reality known to many at Baruch. It is a reality many more will become familiar with as the undergraduate student population steadily grows every year. This number is currently listed at a whopping 18,289 students, according to Forbes.

Of course, there will always be students that get later enrollment appointments than others; this is an unfortunate truth that we must contend with. This does not change the fact that students need full transparency from Baruch regarding how they conduct this crucial process of determining who gets what enrollment dates.