The most common request for an override is a capacity override, an override to get into a course or a section of a course that is full. This answer concerns this common override request. 

The Mathematics Department does not give capacity overrides for courses numbered under 500, except for MATH 300. Instead, we use a notification list to alert students when we open more seats for a course (whether it is for an existing section or for a new section of a course).

After you and others on the list are alerted of seat openings for a course, the seats become available on a first come, first served basis - whoever registers first for an open seat gets it. So it is important to regularly check your email at the address you leave for the notification list. You should also continue to monitor Self-Service Carolina in the event a seat becomes available because a student drops the course.

No, we will not make exceptions. This would be unfair to the large number of other students who also really really need to get into the course.  

If you have taken an AP Calculus or IB Mathematics (higher level) test and are waiting for the scores to come to USC to satisfy a prerequisite or if you are waiting for course credit from another College or University in order to satisfy a prerequisite, then complete the Department of Mathematics' Temporary Prerequisite Override Request form, and take note of the agreement you are making there.

Detailed information about the UofSC's Mathematics Placement Test (MPT) can be found on the Math Placement page or in a one-page brochure.

No, instructors cannot give overrides (even if they want to).

You should get an email immediately indicating that your name is on the notification list. After that, the time period will vary greatly. If you put in a request in the spring, we may not create more seats for the course until early August. And it is possible that we will not create more seats for a course at all, especially for requests that are made close to the start of classes. In any event, you will be notified after we have made our last changes for the semester of the course you requested.

There is no need to indicate the section you need. We will notify you whenever we create seats for a course, including if we create additional seats in the section you happen to need, whatever it is. When we notify you, you should also be sure to check whether there are new sections created of the course you want that will fit into your schedule.

We cannot accommodate this. The instructor that is assigned to a section can change or switch at any time prior to the semester or summer session starting. We try to indicate early on for some of the sections who the instructors will be, but there are a number of reasons that the instructors may need to change. We cannot assign a student to a particular instructor.

No. You can only obtain seats through the registration process and when it is time for you to register.

There are several possibilities, but most likely you do not meet the prerequisites for the course you are trying to get into. 

If you meet the prerequisites, then you may be trying to sign up for a course that is restricted to students in the Opportunities Scholars' Program (section numbers beginning with “T”), restricted to students in the IAP program (section numbers beginning with “S”) or restricted to students in the South Carolina Honors College (section numbers beginning with “H”). If you are getting a student attribution error, then you are likely trying to sign up for one of these classes and are not eligible.  Enrollment in these courses is not handled by the Mathematics Department, but rather by the individual programs involved.

This notification list is for the Mathematics Department. In particular, we are not the Statistics Department. You should contact the department that offers the course you are interested in to inquire about overrides into their courses.

This is done the same way. Fill out the notification list indicated in the first question above. The only difference is that we may give you an override into the requested course and contact you directly. Note that an override does not register you for the course; you will still need to do that yourself.

We only notify students for courses when we create seats in them. There are other reasons seats can become available. In particular, if a student drops a section, which is out of our control, a seat will become available, but we will not know and will not notify you.

Looks can be deceiving. Sometimes caps (the number of seats available in a course) are lowered (for example, to help us balance enrollments in different sections). This will cause an appearance that overrides were given. Also, enrollments in courses taught through the South Carolina Honors College or the Opportunities Scholars' Program are not handled through the Mathematics Department, even though they may be mathematics courses. We do not control how registration is handled for these, and overrides for students in these programs may occur for these courses.