Students report additional registration glitches, with windows open early

Reports of glitches in the registration process began rolling in from students shortly after midnight Thursday morning.

Approximately seven hours before the second freshman registration window was set to open, ACES unexpectedly appeared to open registrations for all windows. The glitch comes on the day that registration was initially set to open for all undergraduates, before windows were pushed back two days due to issues caused by problems with the system during senior registration. The initial problems with ACES were linked to a student-written program designed to allow automatic course registration.

"There was a human error that created a setting problem that allowed students with the last two windows to enroll after midnight this morning," University Registrar Bruce Cunningham wrote in an email at 7:06 a.m. Thursday, adding that administrators are currently working to determine the scope of what happened.

News of the snafu spread quickly among the freshmen.

“Basically my friend came screaming down the hall that he just successfully registered for some reason,” freshman Robert Steilberg said of discovering registration was open. “After I realized this and tried to register, I saw that I didn't get into the [computer science] class that I had bookbagged. So then I realized that all the freshmen assigned to the third window were allowed to enroll, thus giving an unfair advantage over those of us in second window who had to be in third window last semester.”

Steilberg went on to post a concerned message in the Class of 2018 Facebook page. Several other posts on social media, both on Facebook and Yik Yak, expressed a range of emotions from outrage to delight in being able to register.

Some students have speculated that those who registered before their widow was supposed to open will have their schedules cleared, but no official information from administrators has been released—unlike the issue earlier this year, which prompted emails to all undergraduates from the registrar's office.

This article was updated at 8:10 a.m. to include Bruce Cunningham's comment. Check back for details about registration as new information is released in this developing story.