The simplest answer is COVID-19. We want all of our students with us on campus, but we cannot predict right now if the virus will subside enough to let everyone safely return in the fall. We wanted to identify the best set of circumstances that could bring you back to campus in the fall and make it more likely that you would not need to disrupt your studies with a switch to online classes in the middle of a term.

The best solution that seemed to satisfy these requirements was to start the semester later, giving the virus more time to subside, and to divide it into two mods, increasing the probability that you could complete your courses without disruption.

We will be using a mod schedule for both Fall 2020 and Spring 2021.

The fall semester calendar can be found on the Academic Calendar.

• Mod 1
  • Classes start on Tuesday Sept. 1 and end Thursday Oct. 15.
  • Exams will be held on Friday Oct. 16 and Saturday Oct. 17.
• Mod 2
  • Classes start on Monday Oct. 19 and end Friday Dec. 4.
  • Exams will be held on Monday Dec. 7 and Tuesday Dec. 8.
• To limit the spread of the coronavirus, no fall break is scheduled.

The spring semester calendar will be finalized soon.

Each mod has 7 weeks of class meetings followed by 2 days for exams.

Under a mod schedule, each class will utilize one of seven timeslots.

Although six of the timeslots have time scheduled every day (Monday through Friday) and the evening timeslot is scheduled Mondays and Wednesdays, a class may not meet on all of the designated days. Your professors will utilize the time in the way that best supports the learning goals for the class, and this will be clearly communicated to you on the first day of class.

More Information on Course Timeslots and Meeting Times

Yes, you will sign up for courses in both mods during online course registration. Although the semester will be broken into mods, it will be treated as a single semester by the college as stipulated by the U.S. Department of Education. Students must take courses in both mods to qualify for financial aid for the fall semester and, to qualify as a full-time student, must be enrolled for a minimum of 3.0 units during the entire semester.

Although the semester will be broken into mods, it will be treated as a single semester by the college as stipulated by the U.S. Department of Education. Students must take courses in both mods to qualify for financial aid for the fall semester. Full-time enrollment must be maintained for financial aid (and scholarships) purposes as well as to live on campus (when the time comes).

In order to be considered full-time a student must enroll in at least one course in each mod and must remain enrolled in 3 units between the two mods of the fall term. A typical scenario is that a student would enroll in 2 units per mod.

Yes, your advisor will need to clear you to add and drop courses during the August 10-14 add/drop period.

Registration for Spring 2021 classes will take place between Tuesday November 10 and Friday November 13. 

Ask the professor to “authorize” your enrollment in the Portal, which will then enable you to register yourself. During online registration, you can add the course with the override, or if you waitlisted yourself, you can go to courses/registration in the Portal and convert your waitlisted status to enrolled. You do that either by clicking on the “move to current” message next to the waitlisted course, or, if that message doesn’t appear, then drop the course and re-add it (the authorization will allow you to do that).

Some courses are listed in more than one way (from 2-4 different ways), e.g. Intro to Literary Study may be listed both as ENGL 190 and CPLT 190. These are called crosslisted courses. You can sign up for the course either way, but to see the combined total enrollment in the course, click on the course code link for course details; right below the description is information about the enrollment, including waitlist count. The “parent” course controls the combined total enrollment. Both the “parent” and “child” courses show as “full” once the parent cap has been reached.

You can add yourself to the waitlist for the course, in case space in the course becomes available. If the instructor authorizes you to join, you still need to add yourself to the course. If the waitlist option is not available, contact the course instructor.

See this handy Portal view of course authorization and waitlist.  Note that during online registration waitlist is enabled for courses: if a course is full, you will be prompted and may put yourself on a waitlist for the course. You must use the waitlist option before you enroll in the course limit for the day (1 unit on the first day, 2 units on the second day, etc.)

When online registration is closed, contact registrar@beloit.edu for assistance in making any changes.