After seniors and juniors enrolled in courses on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, many courses filled up before underclassmen had a chance to enroll, attracting biannual student ire.
The Daily Princetonian tracked enrollment data over the first two days of Spring course enrollment, and found that 74 courses were filled to capacity, and 106 were at 90 percent capacity or higher before sophomores and first-years begin to enroll on Thursday and Friday, respectively.
The analysis did not include Freshman or Writing Seminars, nor classes intended for independent work or lessons.
After seniors enrolled on Tuesday, the ‘Prince,’ using the same methodology, found that 49 classes had five or fewer seats remaining, 18 of which were at capacity from the Class of 2025 alone. One of which was popular ANT 232, titled “Love: Anthropological Explorations”; the seminar had 15 spots available, all of which were filled within seconds of senior enrollment beginning. The course has 60 “subscribers,” as of publication, on TigerSnatch, a website that allows users to receive alerts when a spot opens up in a particular course.
One student who didn’t get a spot in ANT 232, Sidney Singer ’25, expressed frustration at not being able to get into her desired courses as a senior.
“It’s really frustrating, because when you’re an underclassman, you’re always told that when you’re a senior, you’ll be able to take the fun classes that you weren’t able to get into,” she said. “And now that I’m a senior, it’s really upsetting that I can’t take these classes.”
“Also with the growing class sizes, I think that it’s going to become an even bigger problem in the future,” she continued.
Singer is a former News and Newsletter editor for the ‘Prince.’
The Class of 2026 was the largest class in Princeton’s history, beginning a planned four-year expansion in the student body. In the Class of 2026’s first semester, this affected enrollment in popular introductory classes like PHY 103 and CHM 201. This year, the effect was especially felt on PHY 108: Physics for the Life Sciences, which is a highly-sought course for pre-med students and filled when juniors enrolled, leaving many without the option.
Gabriela Gandara-Gutierrez ’26, who is on a pre-med track, explained to the ‘Prince’ that the course is recommended for people taking the MCAT, the admissions exam for medical school.
“I emailed the professor to try to see if I could get in, since I’m pre-med and you know, it would help with my career and academic advancement,” she said. “And he responded a couple hours later saying … that they would give priority to the seniors that were locked out last year.”
“I didn’t think it would be that bad,” she added, recounting her feelings going into the reaction. “I was like, ‘Oh, maybe I’m gonna get in. I still got a chance.’”
In an email obtained by the ‘Prince,’ instructor Jason Puchalla explained to those on the course’s waitlist that “currently, 60 juniors remain on the waitlist” and that the course is “completely full.”
“It is possible a few seats will open in January,” he wrote in the email. “Those will go to a lottery made from the waitlist that you are on.”
The course has 165 “subscribers” on TigerSnatch as of publication, the most of any other class.
Other required courses also filled quickly. Rayan Elahmadi ’26 told the ‘Prince’ that he was unable to enroll in a course he needed for his minor due to a restriction.
“I tried to enroll in ECE 433, it’s a pretty fundamental course that I need for the [Statistics and Machine Learning] minor I’m getting and it filled up pretty quickly,” he said. “It only had 80 seats for undergraduates with the remaining 20 seats reserved for graduate seats.”
“I already emailed the professor asking if they can expand the course space,” he continued. “I’m hoping the professor can open up some more seats seeing the high demand in his course.”
Two seminars taught by Professor Ethan Kapstein both filled up. Both seminars — POL 442 and POL 445 — count for the International Relations subfield in the Politics department and are both highly rated.
POL 445: Insurgency and Counterinsurgency has received an average rating of 4.93 during the last three times it has been offered.
One of the larger courses that filled up quickly was Material Sciences and Engineering (MSE) 200, a course titled “Magic Materials” taught by Kai A. Filsinger. The course also has 40 “subscribers” on TigerSnatch.
Despite meeting in the morning from 8:30 a.m. to 9:50 a.m. — a time slot where a small percentage of students are in class — Filsinger’s class filled up within seconds after junior course enrollment opened on Wednesday at 7:30 a.m.
“In general, I believe the physical nature of materials science lends itself as an easy entry point to STEM, even if students had little to no exposure to it before,” Filsinger wrote to the ‘Prince.’
Filsinger noted that the course was originally designed for 15 students. However, its capacity was expanded to 30 last spring and again to 45 for the upcoming Spring 2025 term due to demand.
“The restricting factor here is the lab space and nature of the experiments,” Filsinger said. “I would love to have every student experience the materials firsthand.”
“Initially, I designed those experiments for lab groups of 5–8 students but with the extensions to 30 and now 45 students, we have to increase this to 15 students, split between three lab sessions per week,” he continued. “If this course were to extend further, more lab space and a major redesign of the course would be necessary.”
Charlie Roth is a senior News editor and assistant Data editor for the ‘Prince.’
Hayk Yengibaryan is an associate Sports editor and News contributor for the ‘Prince.’
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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