Ssol columbia

anyone know if final exams will be held on friday dec 22, 2023? getting 2 different perspectives from these websites.
https://www.registrar.columbia.edu/event/academic-calendar
https://ssol.columbia.edu/cgi-bin/ssol/oSSl2rUCB49MwnezM07A9x/?p%.5Fr%.5Fid=jHp5LkFqHYAsnZPVhrNzHh&p%.5Ft%.5Fid=1&tran%.5B1%.5D%.5Fterm%.5Fid=20233&tran%.5B1%.5D%.5Ftran%.5Fname=spex

My professor occasionally updated our grade on courseworks throughout the semester and I had no concerns whatsoever. I did well on each assignment and was given praises for my contribution to the class.
Today I woke up to a notification that she uploaded grades to ssol. To my surprise, she gave me an A-. An A- isn’t bad but I was expecting an A. So I reviewed my graded assignments and her grading policy and I clearly earned an A (97%). With this information, I email her and in less than 5 minutes she responds and says that she had already spoken with me regarding my participation earlier in the semester and that’s why I got an A-.
Prior to my email to her this morning, on ssol it showed that my grade was an A. However I just got several emails stating my grade for each assignment was updated. I checked and they’ve all been lowered. This now changes my grade to a B. And she says that there’s an error and she needs to speak with IT to make my grade on courseworks and ssol the same.
What should I do? Will she change my grade on ssol to a B? Or will she change my courseworks grade to an A-?
Can she change my grade?
This is my final semester at Columbia my GPA is 3.78. Having an A in this class would’ve boosted my gpa to a 3.8. I know it’s kinda stupid but I feel having a slightly higher GPA makes me a better applicant for a competitive graduate program I’m applying for.
Her class is also important because it’s the focus of the graduate program I’m applying to. I’m depressed. :(

Before I begin my rant, I just want to clarify that I'm not trying to brag about being a great student at Columbia. I know there are many other talented and hardworking students here and I have a lot of respect for all of them. I just want to express my frustration about a certain grading policy that has affected me personally in a way that I think is very unfair.
I'm a Computer Science student in CC. I've taken enough classes to know how difficult they usually come, and how I can expect to perform given my effort. I've tried really hard to maintain a good GPA. However, this semester, I took one class that happened to be extremely difficult. Exam averages were in 20-30 range. Many students asked about how this would be handled for final course grades. The professor said the distribution would be median-adjusted to a "B," with the professor saying something like, "Everyone could get an A if they scored well." Obviously, this is nothing short of a fantasy, since the exams are designed such that you must be unfeasibly exceptional to get a full score. Nobody scored a full score on any of the 2 midterms or final.
I enrolled in the class with several of my friends whom I know to be great students as well. The class is, in fact, filled unusually with students who have done great at Columbia. So, what happens when you shove us all into the same class? Well, I score around the median. I'm pushed to my absolute limits to score there. I had several things I was working toward, one being Latin Honors, and my chances of making the cutoff are now lesser. My GPA has been lowered for Grad admissions. And, in an even more tragic story, for one of my friends who doesn't do the best but is certainly average here, who should be getting a B if this class was i.i.d. with students in our department, he ended up with a C-.
We are truly baffled by final grades, and it's unfair for some classes to pit students in an arena together so that we can kill ourselves just to not destroy our GPA here. And if it's so clear that a class is gonna tank your GPA, doesn't this disincentivize students from taking challenging classes here? I just think this whole thing is ridiculous and there should be a more rigorous adjustment procedure than placing Thor's hammer on "B". Furthermore, I think it's a cheap shot argument for professors to say "There is no Thor's hammer on B, if everyone got 100's on the exams, everyone would get A+!" because even the statistical theories they teach could probably be applied to guess that the probability our distribution would be centered at an 'A' — from historical performance and exam design — is less than the probability that a Boltzmann brain spawns in front of me during my exam and aces all 3 of my exams by telekinetically moving my pencil and then telling me I'm special and loved before departing. Excuse my comedic relief. Anyway, I almost want to ask my professor to consider a more lenient policy, but grades are already posted on SSOL. Basically, I got "fuck you and deal with it" for Christmas this semester, and I'm not happy.
Sorry about the rant. Super tilted right now. I guess the lessons learned are:

1. Your performance is completely relative to other students, not your own merit, so your successes are absolutely their failures and vice versa (super toxic culture this creates IMO),
2. If you care about your GPA, don't take hard classes (or more accurately, don't take classes alongside good students), and
3. One way or another you could be fucked under this system without ever knowing it was coming, and there won't be a damn thing you can do about it. Some of those students among the top ranks just didn't get fucked over like you.

Is it the BIOL 1500 course on SSOL? Do I just join the waitlist and show up even as a Columbia post-bac student? I heard somewhere about needing advisor's approval?

Hi - Columbia is charging me late fees, for bills they have never sent or asked me to pay. I have documentation of every bill, for every month of the fall 2021 semester, all fully paid by date due.
For December 2021, I was sent a bill labeled *not final*, and with no amount due listed (it was blank). I have documentation with several separate offices, asking for clarification on *if* I needed to pay, what I should pay, when it'd be due, and when I might get an updated bill. No one could tell me. I assumed any un-finalized charges would be rolled over to my next bill. In my next bill, January, it was listed that the university *owed me a refund* of many thousands of dollars.
Now they are saying that I owe a late fee for December. However, they never asked me to pay anything, never issued a bill, and did not clarify when I proactively asked. Whatever is going on here, is completely in their back end system.
When I ask about removing the late fee, many offices first blame me, then when I show the documentation, they simply do not respond.
This is plainly unethical. I am sad and demoralized and don't understand why they are doing this.
I don't know what to do and asking for help:
(1) Which specific laws does this violate (I have a couple, trying to assemble a full list, and could use help)
(2) Are there people / campus orgs I can reach out to for help?
(3) Other advice?
(There are also longer standing issues with my SSOL in that the fees listed in it don't sum up/contradict the bills they send me -- which I have documentation on, sending many emails and opening tickets -- with no resolution or clarification)

god i hate columbia administration. the level of incompetence and basic lack of caring about other human beings never fails to amaze me. the mess-ups are constant, and they are not about trivial things. the ramifications on student's lives is drastic. just kidding, we screwed up, give us extra tens of thousands by next week or you're out. just kidding, we screwed up, we emailed you and listed in SSOL you are enrolled in health insurance but you are not. sorry if you left another policy, you're SOL i guess. just kidding, we screwed up, you are not registered for the classes listed in ssol.
information in ssol is pretty much constantly wrong. and the admin ignores it if they put completely bad information in ssol. but if nested 3 pages down, 6 levels deep into ssol there is some very confusing fine print that doesn't make sense, they will block your registration and ask for more money.
save yourself. don't go to this school. the professors are great, but on balance, it's simply not worth it given how insanely bad the admin is.

I want to get a Meningitis booster and an overall physical done.
I am on Columbia's student health insurance.
I'm trying to figure out are these things that I get done through Columbia? Would I book these through SSOL? Or am I supposed to use the health insurance to find a doctor in the area to do these for me?

I just checked SSOL and it said I had a medical hold on my account, which confused me because I've been up to date on everything. The only thing that was non-compliant was my Meningococcal ACWY, BUT I had submitted the date for that (it's also on my immunization records which have been approved) MONTHS ago. I checked my medical portal and it said it was still awaiting review.
Like what the fuck columbia? I've done everything you've asked.

Culpa.io is a place to review review everything related to Columbia! There were initially some issues with migrating culpa data, but we managed to copy over every course and professor review from culpa.info to get you started.
Why did we remake Culpa?
Now that the OG Culpa has been down for half the year, and it seems like there are little to no people working on it anymore or checking the email, it's safe to say that the site is dead. Not being able to review classes or see any of the old reviews left a pretty big void, which was partially filled by a couple wonderful website devs here with culpaarchive and culpacache. That said, the ability to anonymously review classes & professors at Columbia has been missing for a long time. Now you can do that with Culpa.io!
What's new from the OG site?
Now you can review everything from SSOL (it’s currently sitting at 1 star) to the bathrooms in butler. If you can think of another fun category to add, let us know!
Why should I use this site?
If you are looking for course reviews, culpa.io is now the most accurate archive of everything that was on culpa.info before it went down. We appreciated the efforts from the sites that have tried to preserve the data from culpa.info, but noticed some of the previous archives made use of the wayback machine so they were missing reviews from after 2016. Additionally, given how the OG culpa data was set up, there were many confusing bugs such as reviews for professors with the same name being merged, and 10 different names for LitHum (we counted). In culpa.io, this has all been fixed! Its not perfect, but hopefully it'll keep improving as we keep improving the site and get suggestions from the community (Please let us know if you find some data that's missing from culpa, and what data it is.)
It is also the first place to anonymously review a lot of other places, resources, and things on campus (like clubs and bathrooms), so hopefully it'll give everyone some useful info about other aspects of Columbia as a whole.
———
A note:
Just like culpa.info, your reviews are completely anonymous. We don’t even store the IP they were posted from (it honestly wouldn’t make sense, since they all come from Columbia anyway). There is still a manual review process to ensure that offensive / inappropriate content is not posted, but we have a dedicated team to help go through reviews (and will be transparent with frequent updates about the site).
———
Updates planned:

- UI improvements - Q&A feature - More powerful searching & sorting - More mobile friendly 

———
We're open to feedback and suggestions on the site, so please ask whatever questions you might have!
TL;DR: new culpa! review class, but also review bathroom. please tell us the best bathroom on campus!

Why are we not allowed to choose our own LitHum, UW, or FroSci teachers? Seems like Columbia also removed the ability to switch sections on SSOL. Any idea what switching sections is going to look like this year?

so I got a message on my SSOL account that I can not register for classes because my MMR requirement had not been met. I then discovered the MMR form and I started to panic. Here is my dilemma. I submitted my full vaccination record on the patient portal which included my MMR vaccinations in June and it says that it is compliant. Under the MMR where it ask you to input when your information for the vaccine, I did that and that was a month ago and it still says awaiting review. So I am still very confused because I did not fill out the specific MMR form as I found out about it yesterday, but the way that they are making it seem is as if it was required and that the record is not enough. Of course my calls and emails have gone unanswered so I turn to reddit to see if anyone can help me. On the website it says that the form is the preferred method to confirm the vaccination but it also list that a "Union health record ,Community health plan record, Military dependent “shot” record , Immunization record card signed by a physician, physician's assistant, or nurse practitioner. I think the most interesting thing is that if the form is required for proof of the MMR vaccine and not any other vaccine which negates the point of uploading the immunization record if the validity of it is questioned.
Please ignore any typos lol I was typing fast. Y'all know what I mean
***UPDATE: So I finally got in contact with Columbia health after several back to back calls, and they said that your full immunization record was enough to satisfy the MMR requirement and they went ahead and cleared it for me. I am going to keep this post up just in case anyone else experiences this issue.

Hi all,
I'm coming back to Columbia after an academic leave, so I don't know if registration has changed because of the pandemic, but I'm unable to actually add classes on SSOL (I can only add myself to waitlists). In particular, I'm trying to register for upper-level CS classes, for which I'm only getting the waitlist option. Is anyone else experiencing this? It's frustrating because I can only add myself to 3 waitlists max and obviously I'm trying to take more than 3 classes. I'm writing to my advisor now, but I also wanted to check here.

SEAS already passed this. GS will likely do the same if they haven't done so already. Here is the full email if you want:
Dear Columbia College students,

I hope that you’re well. I know that this time can be somewhat stressful, even under the best of circumstances, as days get shorter and midterm assignments are due — and of course the conditions created by COVID-19 continue to complicate our lives.
In recognition of the particular challenges of this term, the Committee on Instruction has modified some of the usual academic policies and deadlines for Fall 2020, and I’m writing to share these changes with you in the statement from the committee below. If you have questions about these changes, or if you want to talk about whether the changes affect choices you want to make for the current term, please schedule an appointment to talk with your adviser in the Berick Center.
With best wishes for the last weeks of fall term and for safe and happy holidays ahead,
Lisa Hollibaugh Dean of Academic Affairs Columbia College CC-GS Committee on Instruction
Modifications of Academic Policies for the Fall 2020 semester After an abrupt and brief introduction to online courses in Spring 2020, students now taking a fully online semester are in a system of learning that is still less than familiar to them — one that continues to require them to develop and practice new types of engagement in class, new strategies for learning with online materials, and new habits for work in remote locations. It is also a system of learning that can suffer interference from a variety of technical difficulties or limitations. In recognition of these current challenges, the CC-GS Committee on Instruction (COI) has approved some temporary modifications to certain academic policies for the Fall 2020 semester:
Students will be able to elect the pass/d/fail option for one class this semester without restriction — i.e., the course chosen for this grading option can fulfill a requirement for the Core Curriculum; a requirement for a major, concentration, or special concentration; or an elective.
The deadline for declaring the pass/d/fail option for a course will be extended to the last day of classes for the term (December 14).
Students who completed an immersive course in the “Fall A” term can choose to retroactively apply the pass/d/fail option to that course as their one pass/d/fail course for Fall 2020.
The deadline to withdraw from a course will also be extended to the last day of classes for the term (December 14).
The usual policy for lifting a “P” to uncover a grade will continue. Students will be able to see their assigned grade for the course in question in SSOL and decide by the end of the second week of the Spring 2021 semester (by January 22) whether to uncover the grade or let the “P” remain on the transcript permanently.
It is important to note that there are situations in which it may not be desirable or beneficial for students to use the pass/d/fail option for particular courses of study. The notation of a “P” on a transcript can be read differently by different audiences (within a department or program, within a school, by admissions programs of graduate and professional programs, by employers), and it is important for students to consider future plans when considering a decision that will affect their educational records. Students are therefore strongly encouraged to speak with their academic advisers and their Directors of Undergraduate Studies before making the decision to use the pass/d/fail option, particularly for a class within a major or concentration or for a class that is required or may be important for graduate study.

I was wondering whether SEAS kids can take classes like gen chem, multi, etc.. pass/fail. I've heard from some upperclassmen that it is not allowed, but yet on SSOL, P/F seems to be listed as an option for these classes (at least as far as I can tell). Why would Columbia list this option if it's not permitted, and what would happen if a student signed up for one of these classes pass/fail? Would they have to take it again?
I'm just curious to know either way. Thanks in advance.

Dear Students:
Course registration for the upcoming Fall term will open on Monday, August 3rd, for many of you; please confirm your appointment times in SSOL. To assist you with your course planning, and in particular as we navigate an unusual Fall term, a number of registration enhancements have been developed that will be available to you beginning on Monday.
One new feature is that courses listed on the Directory of Classes and Vergil will be clearly identified by Method of Instruction beginning on Monday. The Method of Instruction has been designated by the course instructor and represents the current estimate of the Teaching Modality that will be used. There are three Methods of Instruction this Fall (On-Line Only, Hybrid, and In-Person). Please note that our Faculty continue to update this information, and it is subject to change in the coming weeks. The Course Directory includes definitions for the three Methods, but it may bear repeating that Hybrid courses include both teaching In-Person and teaching On-Line as part of the fundamental course design. If students are on campus, they should expect to be In-Person for some, but not all of the course components for a Hybrid course. Specifics of Hybrid course formats will be established by each Faculty member at the beginning of each course.
In addition, every course will indicate the Term of Offering -- whether Full Fall Term, Fall Sub-Term A, or Fall Sub-Term B.
You will be able to search for courses based on Method of Instruction and Sub-Term. Both the Directory of Classes and Vergil have been enhanced with this new search capability.
Registering your Preferred Enrollment Intent for each Course in SSOL
Given that a number of our students will not physically be on campus this Fall term, our faculty and our technology teams have worked hard together to ensure that students can access most courses remotely even if the modality is listed as In-person or Hybrid. Understanding your enrollment intentions for In-Person and Hybrid course sections will inform members of the Teaching Faculty of your plans directly on their course rosters, and will also assist the Office of the University Registrar with the assignment of appropriate classrooms. We are therefore asking that all students specify their intended way of participating in the courses on your Fall schedule. For any course that is offered In-Person or Hybrid, we are asking you to indicate when you register whether you intend to participate in the course On-Line or On-Campus.
When you log into SSOL beginning on August 3rd, you will be presented with a list of the classes in which you are currently enrolled. You will be asked to indicate your preferred enrollment intention for each course already on your schedule. Following this initial designation, you will be required to specify your preferred course enrollment intention for every course that is added to your Fall schedule through SSOL registration.
Choices:
On-Line - Choosing this option means that you intend to participate in all class meetings remotely.
On-Campus - Choosing this option means that you intend to participate in classroom instruction, when it is offered (a Hybrid course may have periodic In-Person components).
I hope this information will be useful as you continue to plan your Fall schedule and adjust your course selections during the registration period that begins next week. We look forward to starting a new academic year and a new semester with you. We are here to support you as we navigate new terrain together, all with the goal of ensuring an exceptional academic experience for you at Columbia.
Sincerely,
Barry S. Kane
Associate Vice President and University Registrar
Columbia University in the City of New York

Dear Columbia College students,
I am writing today with an important update to inform you as you plan for the upcoming semester. While the Office of the Registrar had scheduled the next registration period to begin on July 27, we have been informed that the University has decided to postpone the upcoming registration window by a week.
Because of the complexity of spreading the curriculum from two terms to three terms, and more recently, to establishing a range of in-person, hybrid, and online courses, more time is needed to allow the Registrar’s Office to update course schedules and course modalities on the Directory of Courses. This will allow students to make their plans for the Fall semester with the most updated and accurate information.
Registration will now begin on Monday, August 3, and your registration appointment times in SSOL will be reassigned for the periods of August 3 through August 7, and August 10 through 14. We hope that this additional time will also give you the opportunity to talk with your academic advisers and to let us know what questions you still have about the upcoming semester.
We appreciate your patience, as well as your eagerness to begin the academic year ahead.
Sincerely,
Lisa Hollibaugh Dean of Academic Affairs Columbia College

The email: Dear Students,
Earlier today, Columbia University announced that all undergraduate students are eligible for up to $500 in emergency funding to assist with travel, storage, and moving logistics, resulting from yesterday’s announcement that all classes will be conducted online for the remainder of spring semester and the strong recommendation that undergraduate students depart campus by March 30, 2020. Students on study abroad programs are also eligible for this emergency funding.
Students who require financial assistance in order to depart campus or return from study abroad should complete the below form(s): Spring 2020 Housing Status form, due by Monday, March 16 at 5:00 p.m.; be sure to indicate your planned departure date.
COVID-19 Emergency Funding Form for CC/SEAS undergraduates; due by Friday, March 20 at 5:00 p.m. The funds will be disbursed as an advanced refund via direct deposit through SSOL. Please note that you must have direct deposit set-up on your student account to receive immediate access to the funds. Otherwise, a check will be mailed to your address of record. Funds will be disbursed within 3-5 business days. It may take longer for you to access the money if your bank does not immediately release the funds. The $500 of emergency funding is separate from any financial aid you may receive and is intended to reduce obstacles that may prevent your departure from campus or return home from study abroad. Those of you on financial aid may have additional questions about how your aid will be impacted by the housing and dining refund process. As financial aid and your student account are unique to you and your family circumstances, we will be reviewing and responding to individual questions and concerns over the coming days. Your patience is greatly appreciated.
We want to reiterate that students are strongly encouraged to leave campus as soon as you are able, for your own health and safety as well as that of the larger community.
Thank you,
Columbia College & Columbia Engineering

Registration for GSAPP courses is such a clusterfuck, and I’m curious if other schools have this problem.
There’s no limit on how many students can add a course and no waitlist to get in if someone drops. Last semester I had three out of four instructors require all registered students to write a short essay about why they added the class. This was then used to determine who gets to stay and who is forced to drop. One had 50 registrants for a maximum 20-person seminar.
The problems created by this are obvious; professor doesn’t like women, or minorities, or just dislikes a particular student? They don’t get into the class. How the fuck is this okay with Columbia?
Because there’s no guarantee of any classes being secured, lots of students register for way more courses than they actually intend to take, just to hedge their bets. Of course, this just creates more of a problem because the class sizes are even more inflated by people who would rather not have to settle for a second or third choice, but who also need to graduate.
On top of that, one of the courses I added was scheduled at the wrong time (7am instead of 7pm), so the instructor has put a registration block on SSOL requiring his approval to add the class. Which makes sense, since he just wants to be sure that there are no scheduling conflicts. But because SSOL is such a piece of garbage, students who already registered but would like to drop his class also have to get a form signed by the instructor.
And of course this extra course is causing my initial loan disbursement refund to be a few thousand dollars less than it’s supposed to be. I just don’t understand how they can’t be bothered to hire any competent people or update their ancient shitty systems when they have so goddamn much money.

It's my first semester at Columbia after transferring, and during the semester I found that grading was often inaccurate. I got quite some points back by asking to regrade my solutions, when I saw that it was misunderstood. What's the process of appeal for the finals though? Is it normal to appeal final exam grades? Could it be changed once grade posted on SSOL? Should I ask TAs to hold my exam so I can look before the grades are posted?

Hey fellow Lions,
I attend Columbia School of General Studies and have been unable to locate/enroll in the University Studies course. I’ve checked both SSOL and Virgil to no avail.
Can anyone help?

This is my first semester at Columbia. Just wondering if it's normal to not have received all my grades yet. I still am waiting on one grade to show up in SSOL