Course Availability Notifications
Want to know when a seat becomes available in a section of a course?
You can favorite course section(s) in Course Explorer and enable notifications! This allows you to receive an email to your Illinois email when a seat becomes available. This is helpful when course section(s) you're interested in are full and you want to try to register later. It does not override any prerequisite requirements or section restrictions (e.g. major restrictions).
Reminder: New incoming first-year students have a hold on their account that prevents them from making any changes to their Fall 2025 schedule until Friday, August 22 at 12:01am Central Time. An email will be sent in mid-August with more information.
Video: How to favorite sections in Course Explorer
Watch the video below to learn how to favorite specific section(s) of a course in Course Explorer or visit https://mediaspace.illinois.edu/media/t/1xk3b5w23 to view a transcription.
To set up notifications, follow these steps:
- Go to Course Explorer (https://courses.illinois.edu/) and log in using your NetID and password (login link is in the top right corner).
- Search for your desired course by typing only the subject (e.g. "CHEM" for CHEM 102) in the search bar, then click on the specific course number.
- In each section listing, click the star symbol on the left to add sections to your favorites. You can add up to 25 favorites per semester.
- Click "my.courses" in the top right corner and select the "Section Favorites" tab.
- Check the box next to each section you want notifications for. You must do this manually for each section.
Course Explorer updates every 10 minutes. When a seat opens, you'll receive an email to your Illinois account stating:
This is an automated message from the Course Explorer system notifying you that a seat has become available for the following section:
Term:
Course:
CRN:
Meeting day/time:
This notification does not guarantee you the seat nor indicate that you are eligible to enroll in that section. Visit Student Self-Service (https://apps.uillinois.edu/selfservice) to register once a seat becomes available. To remove favorites, click the trash icon in "my.courses."