The transition to Workday brings many changes that will impact how you plan your academic career at WashU and prepare for registration. Visit the Getting Ready for Students page to learn how you can prepare.
Enforced eligibility requirements
Danforth graduates, undergraduates and School of Medicine students who self-register
Eligibility for course registration (i.e., major, minor, class standing, pre-requisites, co-requisites) will be more strictly enforced.
If you want to enroll in a course section that you are not eligible for, you can request an override.
- You should request any needed overrides prior to your registration appointment. While you still can request overrides after your registration appointment, you will not be eligible to enroll in the course section until after it has been approved.
- Overrides are granted at the course section level, meaning you will need to request multiple overrides if you want an eligibility override for multiple meeting times of a given course.
Waitlists
Danforth graduates, undergraduates and School of Medicine students who self-register
Waitlist notifications and response time
When a seat becomes available in a class you are waitlisted for, you will have 72 hours (3 days) to respond whether you would like to enroll in that class. If you do not respond, the seat is offered to the next person on the list.
You will receive an email when the seat becomes available and can additionally download the Workday app for push notifications.
Waitlisting for a different class meeting time
You can waitlist for multiple sections of the same course or additional sections of a course you’re already enrolled in. For example, if you prefer the BIO 1001 sections at 10 or 11 a.m., but there are no seats left, you may enroll in BIO 1001 at 9 a.m. and waitlist for the 10 and 11 a.m. sections.
No registration lottery
Danforth undergraduates only
There will no longer be a lottery system for registration. Everyone with the same matriculation year (e.g. everyone who started their program in Fall 2025) will have the same registration appointment time. Transfer student appointment times are determined based on their standing at the time of transfer.
Course shop, drop, and swap
Danforth graduates, undergraduates and School of Medicine students who self-register
You will not be able to enroll in two course sections that overlap in time. This means you will not be able to shop for classes the same way you may have in WebSTAC. You will, however, be able to waitlist for a course section that overlaps with a course section you are currently enrolled in.
For example, if you’ve enrolled in BIO 1001 at 10 a.m., you cannot enroll in CHEM 1001 at 10 a.m. You can, however, waitlist for CHEM 1001 if the course section is full, then later drop and swap course sections when a seat becomes available.
Course search
Danforth graduates, undergraduates and School of Medicine students who self-register
Workday Student differentiates between courses and course sections (a specific meeting day, time, location and instructor for a given class). You will register for specific course sections, whereas you’ll use courses for academic planning and browsing.
Finding course section offerings will be search-based, like Google or Spotify. There are many ways to find courses in Workday, so spending time in the system will help you get comfortable.
New course numbers
All students
WashU has adopted a new 4-digit course numbering system, which over time will make it easier to identify sequence and difficulty of classes.
GPAs
All students
With Workday, you may see multiple GPAs on your student profile:
- A cumulative GPA reflecting all the courses you have taken at WashU. If you have more than one academic record, you will have separate cumulative GPAs for each program.
- For instance, students pursuing multiple simultaneous degrees or who have both undergraduate and graduate degrees from WashU will have more than one cumulative GPA.
- This GPA will be on your transcript.
- An academic term GPA reflecting your GPA for a specific semester
- A program GPA, which is like a major GPA
Terminology
All students
Workday will introduce new terminology that you’ll need to know to successfully use the system:
- “Intent to graduate” is now apply for program completion. You initiate this process the semester before you anticipate graduating.
- Program of study is the term that encompasses all majors, minors, second majors, as well as graduate degrees and credentials at WashU.
- Courses and course sections will be used differently in Workday. You’ll register for course sections (the day and time of a specific course) but use courses for planning purposes.
- Subjects are the area of study for a course, like accounting or biomedical engineering. In Workday, these align most closely with “departments” in Course Listings and, similarly, can be used to filter courses.
For more new terms, visit the glossary.