As of last year, departments are required to submit course descriptions by May 1. The full faculty votes on a final draft prepared by the registrar's office on May 24, it is sent to the publisher on June 28 and comes back to the registrar's office in early August.

Therefore the registrar needs at least seven weeks to turn around a catalog, meaning that under a system of pre-registration, departments would have to submit course descriptions nearly two months sooner than under the present system, which would entail a major change, says a staff member in the Registrar's office.

Another problem cited even by faculty members who support limited pre-registration is that first-years would have no way to select their courses.

This problem might be particularly troublesome for Core offerings which often vary in size because nearly half of the enrollees in the fall semester are first-years, according to Swain.

Cheaper Book Prices

One area where students would certainly benefit from pre-registration is in terms of Coop book prices.

According to Evan P. Mooney, department manager of the Coop, many publishers charge book stores a fixed percentage of the cost of the books they return. These restocking fees, he says, can be as much as five percent.

The Coop has a return rate of nearly 30 percent, much of which can be attributed to shopping period, Mooney says.

"It makes things much more challenging," Mooney said in the midst of the book craze at the beginning of fall semester. "Some Core classes will have an enrollment of 60, then enrollment balloons to 200, and then back to 60 again."

The result of this uncertain process is a higher price for books than would be expected under pre-registration.