On This Page
Reviewing and Ranking Applications
Spring Term 2025 – Add/Drop Period:
Students will send petitions in My.Harvard
for your approval to fill open seats or to be placed on the waitlist
from Jan 13th – Feb 3rd.
Spring Term 2025 Dates
January 13: Add/Drop Period begins
January 27: 1st Day of Classes
February 3, 2025: Deadline for Add/Drop Period
Instructions for Program Application System (Summer)
For using our application system, we recommend that you use Firefox as your web browser. Some instructors have had difficulty using Google Chrome and Safari.
When the system opens for reviewing, click on the button above to enter the application system. You will be prompted to enter your HUID and PIN. Once the page opens, click on your seminar to begin the process of reviewing applications.
Accepting Additional Students
After the summer application period ends, we will post the list of seminars with open seats on our website and encourage first-year students to contact instructors for approval to enroll. Please let us know if you’d like us not to post your seminar on the list.
Adding Students and My.Harvard Registration
Please download your preliminary class list from our application site. Students on this preliminary list were already accepted by you and will be enrolled by the registrar’s office and no further action by you or the student is required. We regret that we cannot keep track of the students who add or drop your seminar. Enrollment lists will be viewable in My.Harvard.
Please remember that students will not be able to enroll in your first-year seminar until you go online to give your approval to their petitions in the My.Harvard.edu website. Log in to the Teaching Portal in My.Harvard Teaching/Advising Portal. Student petitions are with the courses listed. Please click here for instructions about the petitions process. Your official class list will be found on this Portal.
About the Algorithm
Our matching algorithm is the creation of Alvin E. Roth, Nobel Laureate and George Gund Professor of Economics and Business Administration, Emeritus. He specializes in game theory and market models, and he created the matching algorithm for the Harvard College Housing Lottery (random match) and the New England Program for Kidney Exchange (paired match). His algorithm for the First-Year Seminar Program matches the student’s top choices in seminars against the instructor’s top offers in a random sequence to find the best mutually‐agreeable assignment for each applicant. We run the algorithm once each term and it matches students to seats until each applicant gets a seat or runs out of applications.
Questions?
Please contact one of the staff below if you have any questions or email us at firstyearseminars@fas.harvard.edu.
