Google Forms for Class Waiting Lists

Sometimes classes fill up during registration. In the past, I have gotten emails from students asking me to place them on a waiting list. However, these emails don’t always contain information that can be helpful for tracking the requests and establishing priority (e.g., their full name, their graduation class, and their reason for taking the course). For Spring registration this semester, I created a Google Form that had fields for the information that I typically need.

 

When a student submitted this form, they were automatically sent an email, confirming that they have been added to my waiting list and letting them know when a decision would be made about the class enrollment.

 

 

I generated a short url (e.g., bit.ly or goo.gl) for the Google Form and asked the registrar to place the url in the Comments column on Web Advisor. When students searched for the class, they saw the url for the waiting list and filled the form out rather than sending an email request to me.

 

 

It worked quite smoothly, and I didn’t have to use the formerly-called Gribly to look up student names and graduation classes.