When I had to re-register for several classes and change my schedule during my fourth semester of college, I thought it would be a good idea to set up an alarm on my phone that would go off every 15 minutes, 24 hours a day, until the add/drop period ended or until I registered for all of my classes. I did not sleep very well and was getting progressively more annoyed with having to check for all of my classes.
When I had to re-register for several classes after I was erroneously dropped from all of my classes in a later semester, I typed the names of my courses into the free Coursicle scheduling app, received a notification when I could register, and added myself to the new class within a minute.
After Coursicle made it easier for me to register for my classes even after the semester had started, I wanted to shout from the rooftops and share what an amazing application it is. But since it’s more practical for me to write a blog post than it is to stand on the roof, here are my tips for how to use Coursicle for scheduling college classes.
Coursicle overview
Coursicle is a college course scheduling app that makes it easier for students to register and plan for their classes. Students can plan their schedules and get notified when seats become available in closed or waitlisted classes, as well as browse the course catalog using filters to find information about class names, locations, professors, and more. For some schools, students can also get the names of textbooks for each class, which makes it easier to purchase books or request accessible textbooks in advance.
Coursicle is a free app available for iOS and Android. Users can pay for a $5 in-app purchase to track unlimited classes each semester, or they can refer the app to three friends and track unlimited courses for free.
Related links
Participating schools
Coursicle now supports over 1100 colleges and universities in the United States, including community colleges, four year colleges, and a mix of public/private schools of various sizes. All programs that use the college’s course scheduling software can be used with Courscile, including undergraduate and graduate classes.
Students can request Coursicle at their institution by sending the developers a message.
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How to use Coursicle
When first using the app, users will need to select their school, and then add classes to track. When the course has an open seat, the user will receive a push notification and can register for the course on their school’s class registration website. Coursicle does not automate registering for classes, they just notify students about which classes are available- they still have to register for courses themselves.
How to add and remove classes
To add a class in Coursicle:
- Click the plus icon on the app home page
- Scroll through all available courses, or run a search for a specific class
- To see all of the classes for a particular department, enter the prefix (e.g IT)
- To find a specific class or section, type in the full course name (IT 104, IT 104-006)
- Click the course name to add it to your list of courses to track.
To remove a course in Coursicle:
- Select the course on the app homepage
- Click the “untrack” button at the top of the screen
- You will no longer receive notifications about this course
Course notifications
If a course becomes open, a phone notification will pop up that says the course has seats available. For example, if I was tracking EDUC 203-001, I would get a notification that says “EDUC 203-001 has been changed from closed to open.” I do not get a notification if a class goes from open to closed.
Once users get a notification, check the name of the class or course registration number to ensure it is the correct class- some institutions may also give the class registration code, which is a 5-6 digit number unique for each class. Students can register by going to the college’s course registration website and enroll in the class. Again, Coursicle does not automate registering for classes, they just notify which classes are available.
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- How To Schedule College Classes
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Using Coursicle with large print
Coursicle works great with Dynamic Text and large print on my devices, though the last letter or two sometimes gets cut off by my display. This doesn’t affect my ability to use the app, as I usually am typing the full name of a course with the section number anyway.
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Using Coursicle with a screen reader
Coursicle is usable with a screen reader. Students can track a course’s status by clicking on the name of the course on the app home screen. From there, they can find out if the course is open, closed, or waitlisted.
TalkBack did not recognize the add course button on the bottom right side of the screen. For some reason, VoiceOver recognized it as “Button 2.” The button does not change locations, so a student should be able to figure out where it is.
When searching for a class, I recommend typing in the prefix for the class to search for available classes in that department. This prevents users from having to read information about every single class from A to Z. For example, if i was registering for assistive technology classes at my college, the prefix would be EDAT.
Related links
- How To Use VoiceOver With Low Vision
- App Accessibility Checklist for Low Vision
- Why I Study Assistive Technology
How I’ve used Coursicle
Tracking virtual classes
When I first registered for a math class, I thought it would be better to take it in-person rather than virtually, but quickly realized that I would actually do better in a virtual class where I could use my desktop computer. I tracked the distance learning/online classes for my math class until I found an open seat and switched to the virtual class.
Enrolling with a popular professor
I found out that one of my favorite professors was teaching another section of a class for my major, but their section was full. I tracked for an open seat with Coursicle and when the professor added additional seat openings for their class, I was one of the first to register!
Last-minute class changes
One semester, I thought I would take two classes that sounded interesting online, but I quickly realized after the first day that I wasn’t actually interested in these topics at all. I tracked two replacement classes with Coursicle and got an alert the moment a seat opened up so that I could fix my schedule and attend the first day of the new class.
Changing your major
For students who decide to change their major before the start of a new semester, it can be challenging to register for required classes. I recommend tracking class openings with Coursicle, as this makes it easier to register for classes during semester breaks without having to constantly refresh the registration page.
Registering or re-registering for all of my classes
Coursicle has a great scheduling tool for planning out the semester, but as I mentioned in the first section of this post, it also came in handy when I had to re-register for all of my classes after an administrative error caused me to be dropped from all of my classes. Being able to view the building location and times for each of the classes made it easier for me to adjust plans and make sure I didn’t schedule two classes on opposite ends of campus back-to-back.
Related links
- Why To Take Virtual Classes in College
- What To Know About College Assistive Technology Specialists
- Ten Questions To Ask When Changing Your Major
- What If I Get Dropped From All My College Classes?
More tips for using the Coursicle class scheduling app
- Some colleges may have separate Coursicle pages for different campuses- this was the case for the community college where I took my math classes
- Coursicle does not require an account for use, though some colleges make select features available to people with a verified .edu account
- Scheduling tools and course information can be viewed on the Coursicle website, but users will need to download the mobile app to track classes
