Although the Committee on Undergraduate Education has discussed making changes to the add/drop deadline, no alterations have been put in motion.

“The feeling has been that [the add/drop deadlines] have to be the same,” says Harris.

There could be repercussions to separating the two deadlines, he says.

“I think it would certainly mean more students enrolling in five [courses] and dropping, and that has consequences for enrollment management and rooms and sections,” he says. “I certainly wouldn’t want to encourage that.”

But Harris says that the late deadline to add a course can be difficult for students who do not realize that professors must approve any add forms after study card day.

“I do think our add deadline is too late,” says Harris, who sets his own deadline for allowing students to add his courses.

“I’ll let anybody in in the second week,” he says. “I’ve made one or two exceptions, but I won’t let anybody in in the fourth week, and the third week I negotiate.”

On the other hand, Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and of Physics Adam E. Cohen ’01—who is teaching Physical Sciences 1: “Chemical Bonding, Energy, and Reactivity: An Introduction to the Physical Sciences” this semester—says he thinks the extended add/drop deadline gives students the flexibility to adjust their class schedule if needed.

“It’s good for the system to have built in special arrangements for students whose circumstances are unusual,” he says.

However, the freshman who is searching for two new courses says she wishes she had been better informed about the process earlier in the semester.

“I’ve e-mailed a lot of professors and they said that they already had to cap enrollment, or that they’d rather not let someone in this late, or ‘thank you for your interest, but no,’” she says. “I would probably have tried switching courses earlier if I knew I’d be in such a jam and looking for a long time for courses and not having any.”

She says she thinks the administration should be more up front about the difficulties of adding a course this close to the add/drop deadline.

“If it’s just a myth that add/drop period is actually four weeks and it’s actually three—or two—let people know,” she says. “It affects decisions.”

—Julie M. Zauzmer contributed reporting to this story.

—Staff writer Rebecca D. Robbins can be reached at rrobbins@college.harvard.edu.