IMPORTANT: OLLI at UMass Boston uses a priority/lottery system to determine final course registrations. How does the lottery work? If demand exceeds the number of seats for a course, the computer assigns those seats by lottery based on your priority rankings of your course requests. The maximum number of students registered for each course depends on the course topic (some may work best with a smaller class size) and the preference of the facilitator. Your courses will be shown as 'Waitlisted' until the lottery is concluded.
Whether you select your courses online or fill out the paper registration form and return it to the OLLI Office, it is good practice to check that the courses are in your preferred order. Note: when you request courses online, their default priority is the order in which you added them to your shopping cart.
It is particularly important to do so if you add additional courses before the Course Request Period closes. Note: you may add more courses online even if you mailed in your initial course requests.
To make sure that your course priorities are accurate:
- Click the yellow 'Account' button at the top of this page. If you are not signed into your OLLI account, you will be asked to log in.
- Once you are on the 'My Account' page, select 'Review/Change Course Priorities.'
- You may then adjust the priorities of your courses by changing the number next to each course. Note: when you change the priority of a course, it swaps the priority of the course you are changing with the one that is currently in that position rather than simply inserting it in the new position. For example, if course A has priority 1 and course D has priority 4, and you change D to priority 1, course A will be changed to priority 4. If you wanted the courses in priority order D, A, B, C, you would need to change the priority of the other courses as well.
- Click the yellow 'Save Priorities' button to make sure your new order is recorded - and make sure the courses are in the desired order.
Removing/dropping courses. If you wish to drop a course or other program registration at anytime, please call (617.287.7090) or email (ollireg@gmail.com) the OLLI office, and the staff will remove it for you. You can also click the 'Questions/Suggestions' button at the top of this screen and specify the course(s) you want to remove.
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