"There is no possibility of doing away withshopping period," says Associate Professor of theClassics Cynthia Damon, a Council member.

The discussion is still in preliminary stages,however.

"I do not know whether or how shopping periodmight be modified if preregistration wereadopted," writes Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R.Knowles in a fax. "Schools that havepreregistration all allow some flexibility forcourse (which really amounts to limitedshopping)."

Students at other Ivy League schools sign upfor classes in a variety of ways, but those at allschools except for Yale preregister.

Yale's system is identical to Harvard's exceptthat shopping period is two weeks instead of one,according to Maria A. Capecelatro, officeassistant to the undergraduate registrar's officeat Yale.

Princeton, Brown, Dartmouth and the Universityof Pennsylvania have preregistration in thespring and a free add/drop period during the firstfew weeks of classes. Students at Cornell sign upfor classes the week before courses start.

"Princeton doesn't like to call it a shoppingperiod, but that's what [students] like to do thefirst two weeks, because they change every coursethey can find," says Jill C. Weston, officeassistant to the registrar at Princeton.

At Dartmouth, "all limited courses are handledon a priority basis" during preregistration, saysAssociate Registrar Nancy O. Broadhead. This year,about 25 courses were "overstuffed" for the fallterm, she says. Professors can decide how to givepriority, say, to senior concentrators orinterested first-years.

One Harvard student says he likes Harvard'ssystem because it makes it difficult to limit thesize of classes.

"At other schools, if you register early, theylimit the class size," says Rohan Hazelton '96."Here, they can hardly ever turn away a student,except for a few classes that are lotteried."

Registrar Georgene B. Herschbach says thatsince Harvard limits the enrollment of very fewcourses, a system of preregistration would have tobe carefully planned.

"Given that we have relatively few courses thatlimit enrollment, we'd have to be clever aboutdesigning a system everyone would take seriously,"Herschbach says.

In its preliminary discussions, the Council hasmade no decision about the form preregistrationwould take if Harvard adopted it.

Preregistration would require careful advisingand an earlier deadline for Courses ofInstruction, Herschbach says.

"We are currently on a schedule that means thecatalog isn't even complete when we go to pressaround July 4," Herschbach says. "We would have tohave a very different catalog deadline, anddepartments in turn would have to makeappointments earlier, or make decisions aboutcourse offerings earlier, and to recognize thatthey have to be stable."