Registrar - Faculty FAQs

Faculty FAQs

Helpful information for faculty during the academic year.

Start of the Semester

It is common for students to "shop" for classes during the first week. Students may attend classes they are not registered for to see if there is space available or if it is interesting. If your class has an enrollment limit and you are already over your limit, please be honest with the students and tell them there is no room.  It is better for students to understand the situation rather than delaying enrollment decisions until late in the registration period. If you are able to take some, but not all of the students who are unregistered, please let us know right after class and provide us with their names and ID numbers and we can run a secondary lottery. Students must be told by the second class meeting if they have a seat in your class.

If you don't have an enrollment limit, all students are welcome as long as they have met any prerequisite on your course. Take attendance and have non-registered students sign in with their ID number, name, and email address. Students who are interested in your course have until the Wednesday of the second week of class to register. It is a good idea to take formal attendance for at least the first two weeks of classes.

The Registrar's Office will do our best to accommodate all room change requests from Faculty. In some cases, we might ask you to be flexible and wait to move until the second week of classes so we can see what your actual enrollment will be to find the best space for you.

During preregistration at Bryn Mawr, we allow all students to preregister for up to 4.5 units. Prerequisites are enforced during preregistration, however, enrollment limits are not. After preregistration ends, if a course has enrolled over its limit, we hold a lottery. Faculty provide lottery criteria prior to preregistration, so students understand the priority of enrollment in the course. After your lottery is run, results are emailed to students letting them know whether they have retained their seats, been waitlisted, or been dropped from the course. Unless a course has a very high enrollment limit, we try to limit our waitlists to around 10 students. This provides waitlisted students with a realistic chance of being admitted to the class. On the first day of classes, students who are enrolled but do not attend class are forfeiting their seat.  Faculty may provide students on the waitlist a permission number to enroll in the course. Faculty must exhaust the waitlist prior to admitting students who are attending, but not preregistered for the course.

Permission numbers are six digit numbers specific to each course which allow a faculty member to provide digital permission for a student to enroll in their class that otherwise cannot. Permission numbers expire the last day of Registration each semester. For more information on how to access your permission numbers, please review our website.

Swarthmore students are permitted to take Bryn Mawr classes only with instructor permission. Swarthmore students cannot be included in lotteries as they do not have the same priority in classes as Bryn Mawr and Haverford students. If you sign a Swarthmore student's registration form, you are giving them permission to take the class. Please do not sign the form if you do not give them permission to enroll.

Students are automatically added to your Moodle course page approximately an hour after they register for your class in BiONiC. Faculty cannot manually add students to their course page. If a student is showing up on your roster in BiONiC and has not appeared on your Moodle roster yet, please contact the Help Desk (x7440).

Your official class roster is in your Faculty Center in BiONiC. If the student does not appear on your roster in BiONiC, they are not registered for the course and will not receive credit. For more information on how to access your roster, please review our website.

During the Semester

Preregistration occurs towards the end of each semester to preregister for the following semester. Preregistration for the Spring semester occurs each November and preregistration for the Fall semester occurs each April. Incoming students and students returning from a leave of absence preregister in August for the Fall semester.  Students are permitted to preregister for up to 4.5 units. Students who lack the prerequisites for a course, but receive permission from the instructor to register must obtain a permission number from the professor. Permission numbers do not guarantee a student a spot in the class if it goes to lottery, but rather gives them permission to preregister.

If a student is struggling in your class, please reach out the the student's Dean. We want to make sure the student can be successful and provide them any additional resources that might be helpful.

Bryn Mawr does not have administrative drops. Faculty who notice a student is still on their roster, but hasn't attended class in a while should notify the student's Dean. After a conversation with you and the student, the Dean may authorize a late drop or a withdrawal.

Room reservations outside of regularly scheduled class time are booked through Conferences and Events and should be reserved with EMS. If you need a different room for your classroom, please contact the Registrar's Office.

End of the Semester

Final examinations may be either scheduled or self-scheduled. Examination information for each course is collected by the Registrar's Office and distributed to all students several weeks before the beginning of the examination period. Self-scheduled examinations are administered through the Registrar's Office, with the assistance of the Student Curriculum Committee and the Honor Board. Self-Scheduled Exams are handed out in the Upper Level of Guild Hall at the beginning of each self-scheduled exam period. Students that come 15 minutes after the start of exam period may not be permitted to take their exam. For more information on exams, please visit our website.

The Registrar's Office schedules rooms for self-scheduled and scheduled final exams. Reservations for midterm or other in-class exams must be made by the faculty member through Conferences and Events.

About a month into a semester, the Registrar's Office will contact each faculty member to request their exam information. If the faculty member elects to have a self-scheduled exam (which is the standard exam type) for their course, students will take the exam during one of the designated self-scheduled exam blocks. Students have until the end of the exam period to complete their self-scheduled exams. If the faculty member elects to have a scheduled exam, the Registrar's Office schedules the exam based on what other exams students in the class have to complete. The room, day, and time will be assigned. The faculty member will need to facilitate the exam, as the Registrar's Office does not hand out scheduled exams. Faculty members who give final papers or projects in lieu of a final exam should give students the full length of the exam period to complete the final paper/project.

Any written work other than the final exam/paper/project which is due at the end of the exam period cannot be due any later than the last day of classes. This allows students to focus on one final experience for each class. Extensions to this deadline for individual students must be approved by the student's Dean.

Final grades must be entered on your grade roster in BiONiC. For first quarter classes, grades are due two weeks after the end of the quarter. For second quarter and full semester classes, Fall grades are due the first day the college is open after Winter Break (typically around Jan. 2).  Spring grades are due the Monday after the end of senior exams for seniors and one week after the end of the semester for non-seniors. All grades are due at noon on their respective due dates. It is imperative that grades are entered on time as the Registrar's Office has deadlines to adhere to which require to us have all the final grades.

Bryn Mawr grades on a 4.0 scale. The full grading scale can be found online.

Faculty who have talked to students about allowing an extension for assignments/exams past the end of the exam period must discuss the plan with the student's Dean.  A student's inability to complete the work or submit the work does not automatically warrant an extension. If an extension is approved prior to when grades are due, an "I" grade (meaning incomplete) will be entered by the Registrar's Office after receiving the Incomplete Form from the Dean's Office. The form contains information on the work to be completed and the new deadline for both the work and the final grade.

If you are entering grades before an extension is approved, please enter a "UI" on your grade roster and contact the student's Dean. If the extension is approved, the grade will become an "I." If you submit a "UI", the Registrar's Office will ask you for a provisional grade. This is the grade the student would have if no additional work was submitted. In case the extension is not approved, this grade will be posted. If no provisional grade is submitted and the extension is not approved, a grade of 0.0 will be posted.

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Contact Us

Office of the Registrar

Bryn Mawr College
101 N. Merion Ave.
Bryn Mawr, PA 19010
Phone: 610-526-5142
Fax: 610-526-5139
registrar@brynmawr.edu