What it means

Some UW–Madison classes are open only to students who have specific qualifications. These conditions are called requisites.

Look for requisite information in the course or section panel. Information about requisites may also be shown in the Subject Notes for the course.

Types of requisites include:

• Classes: The department expects students enrolling in the class to have the knowledge gained from completing another specific class (or choice of classes).
  • A prerequisite is a class you complete before enrolling in the current one.
  • A corequisite is a class that you can, or are required to, take at the same time.
• Class standing: The class is open to students who are at a certain level, like sophomore or graduate standing.
• Reserved for certain students: Some classes are first held for students in a major, and then open at a later date to other qualified students. Other classes are designed specifically for students in a First-Year Interest Group, or a specific residential learning community.

The enrollment system checks your student record to confirm that you have met the requisites for that class. If you don't meet the criteria set for a requisite, you'll see an error message when adding the class to your cart.

Some students get a requisites error if their transfer credits are similar but not directly equal to the UW–Madison requisite course (example: ECON X10 Elective instead of ECON 101). The enrollment system won't recognize those transfer credits as meeting the requisite. If this describes your situation, please talk with your advisor.

What to Do

Examine the error message to see the class's requisites or directions for viewing them:

warning Validation failed:
Enrollment Requisites are not met. ACT SCI/MATH 303; or member of Business Exchange program

cancel Enrollment failed:
Unable to add this class - requisites have not been met. Satisfied Quantitative Reasoning (QR) A requirement.

Please contact the department offering the course for permission to enroll if you believe that you meet the requisites.

If the department approves you for the class, they will create as special permission for you in the enrollment system.

You still need to enroll in the class! Go to Course Search & Enroll to enroll and make sure to select the correct class section.
Get in touch with the instructor or department who gave the permission if you still have problems enrolling in the class.

You've been given permission to enroll but you're still seeing an error?

You might still be seeing an error message from the last time you attempted to add the course to your cart or enroll.

Revalidate the course in your cart:

• Select the checkbox next to the course and 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.