Limited-Enrollment Lottery

FALL 2025: Limited-enrollment lottery opens on Thursday, August 14 and will close on Wednesday, August 27 at 9 a.m.

SPRING 2026: Limited-enrollment lottery opens on Thursday, January 8 and will close on Thursday, January 22 at 9 a.m.

When the lottery is open, you will find the lottery preferences form in my.Harvard on your Home page. You will be able to add or delete your name to preliminary course “lists” for these courses. After the lottery is closed and run, the results of the lottery will be posted in my.Harvard later that evening, and an email will be sent to student-announce.

Enrollment Selection Process

The Limited-Enrollment (LE) Lottery will utilize a system that optimizes students’ first choices over the entire population, and will employ the same system as that of the studio lottery. In the case of oversubscribed courses, enrollments will be determined based on the numbered wait list when a student drops the course. Any prerequisites that a course may require should be clearly stated so you will know if you are eligible. Please note that you will only be allowed to select three courses via the LE lottery. You should only select a course that you plan on enrolling in if assigned a slot.

Results of the LE lottery will be posted in my.Harvard later in the evening on the day the lottery is closed, and the lists will also be distributed to instructors. Because students may successfully lottery in to more courses than they wish to attend, it is imperative that you attend the first two weeks of class meetings for those courses you wish to remain enrolled or wait-listed; otherwise, you will be dropped from the course and a student from the waitlist will be offered your spot, assuming they are present. If you decide not to enroll in a course after you attend the first class, please contact the faculty member and drop it from your Enrolled Courses in my.harvard. In all cases, please be cognizant of the instructor’s class attendance policies.

If you do not participate in this lottery process and your name does not appear on a waitlist, you can still add yourself to the end of an existing waitlist once the course enrollment period begins each semester (Fall 2025 – August 28, Spring 2026 – January 23).

Prior to the LE Lottery, MDes students may participate in an MDes Advanced Course Selection process (MACS) where a small number of seats are held for specific limited enrollment courses. All open seats are then included in the standard LE lottery. Information regarding MACS is provided to eligible MDes students.