Put your choices in order (1-7 or so) based on their importance to you and, if you have reason to make good guesses, your assumption about the demand for them. High importance and high demand (great competition for the spaces) go to the top of the list--1st and 2 places. Review your choices in the schedule: look at the "Notes" column, and be wary of the notation "PERM"--the course requires permission. Don't list it; invariably, it is not a course appropriate for first-year, first-semester students--even if it were possible for you to get the permission from the right person. "PREQ" means that a course has a prerequisite. If you know you are getting AP or IB credit for a specific Davidson course (like MAT 130, which is prerequisite to MAT 135), go ahead; otherwise, avoid. Footnotes starting with 2, 3, or 4 are closed to first-year students; don't list courses having those footnotes.

Make notes of which courses offer multiple sections or, similarly, of several possible W-courses (you'll get only one). IMPORTANT: the computer program will not automatically give you a different section of a course if the one you put down is full. To get in a different section, you must have it on your list. (The program will not put you into two different sections of the same course, however.)

Note for each course and section its department name and number and its section name (e.g., MAT 130 D); its Course Reference Number (CRN), the five-digit number given only in the schedule--not the catalogue--in parentheses just to the left of the course title; and the times it meets. You'll see several possibilities: your first choice offers three different sections (or there are 3 W-courses, and getting a W-course in the fall is a high priority for you); some other courses offer at least two different sections; or  none of your choices offers multiple sections.

Do not worry about PE credits; they have nothing to do with WebTree.  Do not attempt to put PE on WebTree.  PE registration is handled differently and later.

Use your copy of the WebTree worksheet or print a new one. You'll now use your general sense of priorities to use to your advantage the way WebTree recognizes a combination of priorities and alternatives. 

Your ideal schedule, if all goes the way you wish, occupies slots 1, 1A, 1AA, and 4A. Here are a couple of models. 1st choice--three different sections, with different CRN numbers: Section A: Choice #1 on your worksheet (top of Tree 1) Section B: Choice #2 on your worksheet (top of Tree 2) Section C: Choice #3 on your worksheet (top of Tree 3) You will get #1 OR #2 OR #3 -- NOT #1 AND #2 AND #3. Effect: if one section is full, the program tries to give you the next. OR -- your first choice doesn't have multiple sections: Your first choice becomes Choice #1 on your worksheet (Tree 1, top) Your second choice becomes Choice #2 on your worksheet (Tree 2, top) Your third choice becomes Choice #3 on your worksheet (Tree 3, top) You will get #1 OR #2 OR #3 -- NOT #1 AND #2 AND #3. Whichever of those top choices you get determines most of the rest of your selection tree. If you get choice #1 (top of tree1), the program stays with tree 1 and goes to 1A (or 1B, if 1A is full), then 1AA (or 1BA; the worksheet will show you how that works). If you get choice #2 instead, the next step is 2A (or 2B), then 2AA. Your next priority (on your list of 1-7 or so)--does not have multiple sections: List it as 1A and 2A and 3A so long as its time doesn't conflict with 1, 2, or 3 respectively. It doesn't matter whether you get #1, #2, or #3; you still get at least a shot at your next choice. If your next choice does have two sections (or more), list another of them as 1B, 2B, and 3B -- again, check for time conflicts. If your next-choice course doesn't have multiple sections, develop a specific alternative for it--another course in the same or a similar field, for instance. That course becomes 1B, 2B, and 3B. (If you've listed your second choice in number two and your third in number three--when courses didn't have multiple sections--promote everything: your 3rd choice will go in 2A, your 4th choice in 2B; your 4th choice will go in 3A, your 5th in 3B. Promote everything up a notch, in other words--here and later.) Next choice (on your original list) -- goes in 1AA and, if possible (no time conflicts with courses in the same path) in 1BA, 2AA, 2BA, 3AA, 3BA. Hint: horizontal time conflicts (on the worksheet) are OK; vertical ones aren't Select a specific alternative to your original 3rd choice and put it into 1AB, 1BB, 2AB, 2BB, 3AB, and 3BB --again, watch out for time conflicts with courses above it. Next choice (on your original list): into Tree 4 as 4A. Remaining choices you haven't used go into 4B, 4C, and 4D. Tree 4 is the bench: when the program hits a dead end anywhere else, it goes to Tree 4.

Big hint: it's easier to understand all this visually than it is in words. Click here.