Detailed instructions on registering for courses on Sisu

Click on the ‘Register’ button at the bottom of the registration box.

• If you have more than one right to study, the step where you confirm your registration will ask you to specify which right to study you are using to register for the course.
• The right to study you select at this point will have an effect on the basic requirements and selection criteria that you need to meet to register for the course. The criteria are described in the course information sheet which you can find at the bottom of the registration box. (For further information, see the section ‘Registration selection criteria’ in these instructions.)
• If the course includes registration questions, you need to answer all compulsory questions before you can confirm your registration for the course.

Click ‘Confirm’ to confirm your registration.

• After Sisu receives your course registration, it will check whether you meet the selection criteria and the basic requirements of the course. It will also determine whether you can be admitted to your preferred study groups.
• This usually takes about a minute after Sisu receives your registration. While this calculation process is ongoing, the ‘Registration’ tab of the study calendar displays a question mark next to the teaching you selected and the following notification: ‘The registration calculation has not been run yet.’ Refresh the page to see whether you met the basic requirements and whether you are likely to be admitted to a teaching group based on Sisu’s preliminary calculations.

1. Follow the numbered instructions above until you reach Step 7.
2. Indicate your preferences for each group by choosing one of the options: ‘my preferred group’, ‘suitable’ or ‘not suitable’.
   • The details of the course will tell you how many groups you need to select. You can also see how many students have already been admitted to each group and the total number of students that will be admitted.
   • To see the schedules of different groups, activate the ‘Show events in the calendar’ button next to a teaching group.
   • Sisu aims to assign you to your preferred group(s). If this is not possible, Sisu will assign you to the group(s) you have marked as suitable.
   • Note: The options ‘preferred group’ and ‘suitable’ have an equal weight when Sisu is determining the order of priority between students who have registered for the course. In other words, if one student has marked all suitable groups as preferred groups and another has marked all suitable groups as suitable, Sisu does not give precedence to either student when assigning them to groups.

3. Sometimes you may need to select multiple groups and their number is given as a range. For example, you may need to select 1–3 exercise groups. In this case, you always have to mark one or several groups as your preferred groups because this will determine the maximum number of groups in which you will participate. For example, if you want to participate in three groups, mark three groups as your preferred groups.

4. • Mark the groups that you cannot attend as ‘not suitable’. Sisu will not assign you to these groups.
   • Note: If you mark a group as not suitable and there is no room for you in your preferred or suitable groups either, you will not be able to participate in the course. You should mark groups as ‘not suitable’ only if they absolutely do not fit your schedule.
5. Follow the instructions above and proceed to Steps 8 and 9.

At Aalto University, standard registration is used for teaching where the number of students is limited.

• It is also used for make-up exams. However, everyone who needs to take the exam and fulfils the basic requirements will be admitted to the exam.
• If the course uses standard registration, the study calendar displays an estimate of whether you would be admitted to the course if the registration period ended right now.
• The situation may still change if another student who meets the admission criteria better than you registers for the course.
• When standard registration is in use, your admission to the course does not depend on how early you register.
• Sisu places all registered students in an order of priority based on the registration calculation criteria of the course. If several students are equally suitable to participate but there is no room in the course, Sisu will draw lots between them.

Note: You will know whether you will be admitted to the course after the registration period is over. Check your study calendar after the registration period ends to find out if you were admitted.

At Aalto University, registration with direct confirmation is used for two types of courses: 1) courses with no limit on the number of students and 2) courses that continue throughout the academic term or year and for which students can register at any point of the academic term or year.

• If a course uses registration with direct confirmation, you will admitted to the course immediately upon registration if you meet the basic requirements.

Courses that use standard registration may also be open for late registration if the actual registration period ended without all teaching groups becoming full.

• Late registration works like registration with direct confirmation: if you meet the basic requirements of the course, you will be admitted to the course immediately upon registration.

The study calendar displays the status of your registration. Read more here.

You can also use the search function to register for courses. However, this is not recommended, unless you are registering in order to raise the grade of a course you completed during an earlier academic year.

• If you register for a course through the search function, the course is not necessarily added to your personal study plan and you may forget to select a completion method. As a result, you may fail to fully complete the course.

1. Open the search and use the course information sheet to select courses.
2. Then register for the courses through the ‘Registration’ tab of the study calendar.
3. Add the courses to your study plan through the ‘Structure of studies’ tab.

Note: If you use the search function to register for studies, Sisu will first direct you to register for the course and only then ask you to add the course to your study plan. However, if you add the course to your study plan before registering for it, Sisu will display no notification at the top of the page to remind you to register. In this case, go to the Study calendar to make sure that you have successfully registered.

When you use the search function to register for courses, the teaching you select is automatically added to the ‘Structure of studies’ tab, to the panel called ‘Add to the plan’ on the left-hand side. Instructions on that can be found here.

• You need to choose the completion method that matches the teaching for which you have already registered. This is necessary to ensure that once you complete the course, Sisu will register it correctly. As Sisu does not check that you have selected the correct method of completion, you need to make sure of it yourself.

If you completed a course in a past academic year (e.g. 2020–2021) and you want raise your grade by retaking the course or participating in its make-up exam in the upcoming academic year (e.g. 2021–2022), do the following:

1. Use the search function to find the course.
2. Follow the instructions above to register for the course through the search function.
3. Sisu will display an error message, saying that the course is not in your study plan and you cannot register for it.
   • This is because your study plan contains a different version of the same course.
4. When Sisu refuses to process your registration because the correct version of the course is not included in your study plan, write to Student Services at [email protected] and ask them to confirm your registration for the course (if your registration is not prevented by other factors).

At Aalto University, the autumn term starts on 1 August and the spring term on 1 January. If you try to register for a course that lasts for the whole academic year or the whole summer but you have enrolled as an attending student for the autumn or spring term only, Sisu will not let you register for the course. This happens because Sisu requires that you be enrolled for the entire duration of the course.

In this situation, write to Student Services at [email protected] and ask them to confirm your registration for the course (if your registration is not prevented by other factors).

The ‘Teaching not selected’ tab contains a list of courses that you have already put in your study plan but not yet in your study calendar.

• They are listed by period, in the order in which you placed them in the ‘Timeline’ tab.
• If you have not scheduled the courses yet, they will be displayed as a single list instead of being listed by period.

If a course is going to be taught in the near future and you wish to register for it, do this:

1. Open the ‘Teaching not selected’ tab and click on the ‘Continue to selections’ button.
   • This will open the ‘Completion methods’ tab in the course information sheet.
2. Select a completion method (if you have not selected one yet) and click ‘Select’ to add the teaching to your calendar.
   • Note: When you click ‘Select’, you are adding the teaching to your study calendar but you have not registered for the course yet!
3. To actually register for the course, go to the ‘Registration’ tab and select your preferred teaching groups.

The ‘Registration’ tab displays all courses that you have already put in your study calendar. This includes both courses for which you have already registered and courses for which you still need to register.

• You can also view the courses whose registration period has not yet begun and those for which you have already registered.
• If a course has a limited number of participants, the number is displayed here.
  • If there is no number to the right of the slash (/), then there is no limit on the number of participants.

The ‘Finished and discontinued’ tab contains a list of courses that have ended or you have dropped.