Registration, Courses, and Advising

Registration Process for All Incoming Students

The following are details regarding course registration for your first semester at Heinz College. For most programs, there is a specific set of courses that should be completed in the first semester. This will often include, in large part, required core courses.

To ensure that our students in all programs are completing courses in the best sequence for their degree program, students will be pre-registered by the Heinz Academic Services (HAS) office for their first semester of courses, in collaboration with academic advisors and program offices. HAS will begin to register students in the month prior to their start date. This schedule is not absolute. Your schedule may not be final prior to Heinz College Orientation week.

Incoming students who are part of this pre-registration process will have a registration hold applied to their record and will be required to meet with their academic advisor within the month of August. This is a standard process applied to all students to ensure that schedules can be created and finalized without disruption.

To make sure that the pre-registration process runs smoothly, do not make any changes to your schedule prior to meeting with your academic advisor. Please do not attempt to add or drop any courses (or sections/times of courses) as the pre-registration process is on-going. If you make changes, you may lose your seat in a required course and it will slow down the registration process for all incoming students.

This pre-registration information does not apply to:

Students are not pre-registered at the same time. Please do not worry if another incoming student has a full schedule and you do not see courses in your schedule. Pre-registration is an ongoing process that takes time. Pre-registration is considered complete one week prior to the start of classes. HAS may make changes to your schedule up until this point. Depending upon your degree program (and results of the placement exams or exemption), you may have room in your schedule to add elective courses after the pre-registration process has been completed. For students who wish to secure a part-time job, or settle daycare arrangements, etc, you should anticipate that your first semester schedule will be finalized by the end of Heinz Orientation Week. 

You will be able to access your schedule through Student information Online: SIO.

All incoming full-time students are registered into their first semester courses by the college, so in order to accommodate the scheduling needs of all new students, you may not be registered for your preferred times. Requests to switch sections once your schedule is final are reviewed on a case-by-case basis and cannot be guaranteed.

Heinz College offers a number of Statistics courses to fulfill degree requirements, so we want to ensure that all students understand which courses are available and the best fit for you and your program.

Students in the MAM, MEIM, MSISPM, MSPPM, MS-DA, and MS-DC programs may take any of the following to fulfill their degree requirement:

  • 90-707 Statistical Reasoning
  • 90-711 Statistical Reasoning with R
  • 90-777 Accelerated Statistics

These three Statistics courses cover similar topics, but use different applications and pace to deliver the outcomes. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that students in these programs sit for the scheduled Statistics placement exam to accurately place you into the appropriate course. We want to ensure students are taking the Statistics course that best aligns with their quantitative skill set to help all of our students succeed. Statistics is a foundational course so this is a critical milestone in your journey at Heinz, and placement into the course that best suits you is an important first step!

Students who are required to pass the Quantitative Summer Skills Program (QSSP) will likely be placed directly into 90-707 Statistical Reasoning, as this has been mapped out as a smooth transition for your fall semester following the completion of QSSP. You do not need to sit for the Statistics placement exam.

Students in the MSHCA program will be placed into 90-777 Intermediate Statistics based on their degree requirement, but will have an opportunity to exempt this course by sitting for the scheduled Statistics exemption exam.

Students in the AIM, MISM, and MISM-BIDA programs will be scheduled for 95-796 Statistics for IT Managers based on their degree requirement, but will have an opportunity to exempt this course by sitting for the scheduled Statistics exemption exam.

Heinz College offers a number of Economics courses to fulfill degree requirements, so we want to ensure that all students understand which courses are available and the best fit for you and your program.

Students in the MAM, MEIM, MSPPM, MS-DA, and MS-DC programs may take any of the following to fulfill their degree requirement:

  • 90-710 Applied Economic Analysis
  • 90-709 Intermediate Economic Analysis

These Economics courses cover similar topics, but use different applications and pace to deliver the outcomes. To ensure students are taking the Economics course that best aligns with their quantitative skill set, a review of submitted application materials (such as transcripts) will take place to determine where students will be most successful.

If you are interested in pursuing an exemption from 90-710 or 90-709 following your placement, a process will launch over the summer to allow students to submit documentation to support their interest in an exemption. More details will be provided in the upcoming weeks.

Students in the MSHCA program are required to take 94-705 Health Economics instead. If you are interested in pursuing an exemption for this requirement, please speak with your academic advisor or program director.

Students in the MSISPM, MISM, and MISM-BIDA programs will be scheduled for 95-710 Economic Analysis based on their degree requirement, but will have an opportunity to exempt this course by sitting for the scheduled Economics exemption exam.

Full-time Heinz students will have the opportunity to take placement and exemption exams prior to the start of the fall semester, which offer you the opportunity to place into a higher section of a course or fully exempt a required course.

This is your only opportunity to sit for these exams. For courses that offer exemption exams, you must sit for the exam to earn an exemption. There are no options to exempt those courses after your program begins. For the exam schedule and details regarding available exams for your degree program, please visit: Placement Exam Information.

For required courses that do not offer an exemption or placement exam during orientation, students may petition to request an exemption. Exemption petitions for incoming students will be available during the month prior to the start of the fall semester. Get more information about placement exams.

You will have a session with your program and a meeting with your Academic Advisor. These sessions are meant to clarify course requirements and expectations.

Courses

To view your program's curriculum, please visit one of the following sites:

Credits vs Units: Carnegie Mellon measures coursework in terms of "units" rather than "credits”. A full semester long course is typically 12 units (which is equivalent to 3 - 4 credits of graduate work at other universities), and implies that you can expect to devote an average of 12 hours per week to the course. We also offer half-semester long classes, termed a "mini" that is 6 units. You can still expect to devote an average of 12 hours per week to these courses. A normal course load varies by degree program but is between 48-60 units. Please visit your program's handbook for additional details.

CMU Schedule of Classes legend: Please reference this guide for a summary of how minis versus full-semester courses are scheduled, and how to decipher these courses on your schedule.

In the past, students have expressed an interest in purchasing textbooks prior to their arrival at Carnegie Mellon. We do not recommend that you do this for a number of reasons. First, faculty can change the edition of the textbook they use at the last minute, requiring you to purchase a new book once you arrive. Second, we sometimes have different faculty members teaching different sections of the same course. They do not always use the same text.

We've factored the purchase of books into the Estimated Cost of Attendance for each degree program offered by the Heinz College. As you will see from the breakdown of expenses, the cost for books is in addition to tuition fees and other expenses. We advise that you use these numbers when planning your expenses.

Advising

Each incoming student will be assigned an academic advisor that will help with curriculum decisions. Advisors are assigned to students based on degree programs.

Each student will have a meeting scheduled with their advisor prior to the start of their first semester.

Students should expect to meet with their advisors at least once per academic semester.