26% of colleges still don’t have a fall schedule

As of August 13th, 2020, 26% of colleges still hadn’t announced their plans for the fall. Two weeks to go and no set schedule! It’s a heck of a time to be a university schedule-maker.

Before COVID-19, most schools had a single working schedule based on historical norms. But now, it’s wise to have at least three working schedules: on-campus, online only, and a mix of both. 

If there’s a silver lining, it’s that moving courses online improves the schedule. This year we worked with a graduate program that had a fully online curriculum. ofCourse placed all 198 of their classes, taught by 100 professors, in just two seconds. Yes, two seconds. One. Two. And the end schedule scored a 98%. That means 191 courses were scheduled according to the professor’s first preference, and 7 courses were scheduled according to the professor’s second or third preference. Did we mention that all of that happened in TWO seconds? Our only regret is we don’t have an audio recording of the scheduling team’s reaction.

It’s nearly impossible to generate multiple high-quality schedules without software to do it for you. In the words of one of our clients, Ryan Max Rowberry of Georgia State University School of Law: “As a new Associate Dean, I’m grateful for ofCourse. It’s made the scheduling side of my job much easier. Now, if only the pandemic would cooperate 😀!”