Courses and Enrollment

If you are a UW-Madison undergraduate or graduate student and are unable to enroll into a statistics course because you do not meet the course prerequisites and you believe you do, please fill out this form. You can expect to hear back from a department representative within 2 business days.

If you are already on the waitlist for the course, filling out this form will not increase your chance at enrollment. You will need to remain on the waitlist to see if a seat becomes available to you. Please note that the waitlist is never a guarantee for enrollment and we will not share your position on the waitlist.

At times, the course search & enroll app may display a course with open seats but won’t allow you to enroll. If there are already students on the waitlist for this course, these open seats are being given to students already on the waitlist. If you want to be considered for enrollment, you will need to join the waitlist for the course.

If you are currently on the waitlist for a statistics course, please be patient. You will be notified by email if you are given the opportunity to enroll. We will not be informing students of their position on the waitlist. It is important to note that the waitlist is not a guarantee for enrollment.

You might still be seeing an error message from the last time you attempted to add the course to your cart or enroll. The message does not refresh/validate and will stay on the page until you revalidate the course in your cart or the next time you try to enroll.

Examine the error message to see if you have cleared the issue. Then, you can revalidate the course in your cart to check if the validation error has cleared. Select the checkbox next to the course name and then click the Revalidate button. If the validation error cleared, you can now enroll (even if there’s still an enrollment error message). Check the checkbox next to the course and click the Enroll button.

For more help on this issue, see here.

If you are a UW-Madison visiting student or special student outside of the Statistics department and would like to enroll into a statistics course, please fill out this form. You can expect to hear back from a department representative within 2 business days.

You can now select one or many courses in your cart and trigger a revalidation to check prerequisites without having to remove and re-add the course to the cart or lock/unlock sections.

To revalidate a course so that the authorization will work, select the course in your cart and then select “revalidate”.

If you were provided with a 5 digit class number to enroll into a course, once you are in course search & enroll you can easily add the course to your cart for enrollment.

On the left hand menu of course search & enroll, find + add by class number.

Select add by class number and enter the 5 digit course number you were provided. Then select check credits.

If necessary, select the number of credits to enroll in and then select add to cart.

After adding to your cart, navigate to your cart and select to enroll in the course.

If the course you are trying to enroll in is for declared statistics majors or declared data science majors only, you will have to wait until the stated date in the course note to be able to enroll. If you want to declare the Statistics or Data Science major, please schedule an appointment with a Statistics or Data Science advisor using Starfish.

In order to enroll in Stat 333, you must be successfully enrolled in Stat 303 first. After enrolling in Stat 303, you will need to revalidate your enrollment cart before proceeding to enroll in Stat 333. To revalidate a course, select the course in your cart and then select “revalidate”.

If you are on the waitlist for Stat 303, the enrollment system will not allow you to enroll in Stat 333 until you are successfully in the class and no longer on the waitlist.

In order to enroll in Stat 304, you must be successfully enrolled in Stat 303 first. After enrolling in Stat 303, you will need to revalidate your enrollment cart before proceeding to enroll in Stat 304. To revalidate a course, select the course in your cart and then select “revalidate”.

If you are on the waitlist for Stat 303, the enrollment system will not allow you to enroll in Stat 304 until you are successfully in the class and no longer on the waitlist.

The same holds true for Stat 305. You must be successfully enrolled in Stat 304 before you can enroll in Stat 305. Follow the same steps as above.

For Fall 2023, certain statistics lecture sections are only open to students who are a part of our Statistics VISP and MSDS programs. These lecture sections meet at the same time as the lecture section that is open for undergraduates.

• Stat 303/304/305: lecture 002 and 004 are not open to undergraduates, you’ll need to enroll in lecture 001 or lecture 003.
• Stat 349: lecture 002 is not open to undergraduates, you’ll need to enroll in lecture 001.
• Stat 411: lecture 002 is not open to undergraduates, you’ll need to enroll in lecture 001.
• Stat 451: lecture 002 and lecture 004 are not open to undergraduates, you’ll need to enroll in lecture 001 or lecture 003.
• Stat 461: lecture 002 is not open to undergraduates, you’ll need to enroll in lecture 001.
• Stat 479: lecture 002 is not open to undergraduates, you’ll need to enroll in lecture 001.

The sophomore standing requisite means that students must at least have obtained sophomore standing to enroll in the class. Juniors and seniors are welcome to take these courses.

Stat 302 (Accelerated Introduction to Statistical Methods) will no longer be offered. Students who are interested in majoring in Statistics can take Stat 301, Stat 324, Stat 371, or Stat 240 to fulfill the introductory statistics course requirement for the Statistics major. If you are unsure which introductory statistics course may be the right choice for you, please email advising@stat.wisc.edu.

Students looking to enroll in STAT 403 Internship Course in Computer Science and Data Science should review this website for more information and the enrollment permission form.

Fall 2023

Enrollment is managed through Statistics for the following courses:

• STAT/MATH 309 Introduction to Probability and Mathematical Statistics I
• STAT/MATH 310 Introduction to Probability and Mathematical Statistics II
• STAT/M E 424 Statistical Experimental Design
• STAT/F&W ECOL/HORT 571 Statistical Methods for Bioscience I
• STAT/MATH 709 Mathematical Statistics
• STAT/ECON/GEN BUS 775 Introduction to Bayesian Decision and Control I

Enrollment is managed through Biostatistics and Medical Informatics for the following courses:

• B M I/STAT 541 Introduction to Biostatistics
• B M I/STAT 641 Statistical Methods for Clinical Trials 
• B M I/STAT 727 Theory and Methods of Longitudinal Data Analysis

Enrollment is managed through Computer Sciences for the following courses:

• COMP SCI/STAT 726 Nonlinear Optimization I
• COMP SCI/E C E/STAT 861 Theoretical Foundation of Machine Learning

Enrollment is managed through Industrial and Systems Engineering for the following courses:

• I SY E/COMP SCI/MATH/STAT 525 Linear Optimization

Enrollment is managed through Math for the following courses:

• MATH/STAT 431 Introduction to the Theory of Probability
• MATH/COMP SCI/STAT 475 Introduction to Combinatorics
• MATH/OTM/ I SYE/STAT 632 Introduction to Stochastic Processes
• MATH/STAT 733 Theory of Probability I
• MATH/STAT 833 Topics in the Theory of Probability

While both STAT 309 and 311 are mathematical statistics courses, STAT 309 is deeper, more rigorous mathematically, and offers great preparation for STAT 310. This class is preferred for Stats majors, and priority enrollment access is given to declared Stat/Math/Act Sci majors.

STAT 311 tends to emphasize engineering examples and applications, and often students in Engineering and Data Science will enroll in this option.

Check out our Courses webpage for more info!

If your stat class is online and there is no time listed for the lecture, this means that there is not a required lecture time for you to be present online. This is called an asynchronous course. You will still be responsible for the lecture material shared by your instructor. However, there is not a set time that you need to be present for lecture online each week.

Your instructor may share optional live meeting times for lectures that you can attend if you are able.

The drop deadline can be found in the section details of your course in the Course Search & Enroll app. Session dates and deadlines will open a pop-up — which will show the add and drop dates for that class.

For courses like Stat 303, Stat 304, and Stat 305 this date will be different than a course that is scheduled for the regular 15-week session.  

For modular courses, such as Stat 303, 304 and 305, the deadline to request pass/fail is the Friday of the week where 1/4th of the course is completed. In a five-week class, it would be the Friday of the second week of class, for example.

You may not be able to access your current semester’s courses in Canvas if:

• You recently registered for the course. It may take up to 24 hours for new enrollments to be added to Canvas.
• Your instructor has not published the Canvas course yet. As a student, you will not be able to see a course before it’s published. Your instructor may be waiting to publish the course because they are still making content updates or for a variety of other reasons.

For any other problems with accessing your course, contact the DoIT Help Desk.

More information about auditing a course can be found here.

After receiving instructor permission to audit a course, deliver your signed permission-to-enroll form to the statistics department main office, 1220 Medical Science Center. The department will enter an electronic permission code in the student record system which will permit you to enroll.

If you have received permission to audit a course via email, forward the email from the instructor giving you permission to enroll@stat.wisc.edu along with your campus ID number. You can expect a response within 2 business days.

If you still have questions and you are a declared statistics major, please email advising@stat.wisc.edu or schedule an advising appointment with a statistics advisor, if necessary. Be sure to include your campus ID number and all relevant course information.

If you still have questions and you are a declared data science major, please email dsmajor@stat.wisc.edu or schedule an advising appointment with a data science advisor, if necessary. Be sure to include your campus ID number and all relevant course information.

If you still have questions and you are not a declared statistics or data science major, please email enroll@stat.wisc.edu. Be sure to include your campus ID number and all relevant course information. In the subject line please include the course number.