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Elective Course Pre-Registration Instructions

Full-Time MBA students will find detailed information on the elective registration process below.

Step 1: Pre-Registration Bidding The MBA Program Office pre-registration bidding process takes place online through the Pre-Registration Bidding Portal in Salesforce, with students allocating an allotment of bid points on the elective courses that the Foster MBA Program will offer in the next academic quarter. Bidding results (courses that you may then register for) are determined by a variety of factors described below.
Step 2: Register for Assigned Courses Register online (via MyUW) for your assigned courses using the bidding results provided for you.

To complete the pre-registration elective bidding process:

  1. Consult the timeline. Be absolutely sure you know when bidding opens, and when it closes.
  2. Review the quarterly schedule of courses and tentative schedules for future quarters. Determine which courses you wish to bid on.
  3. Determine how many bid points are available to you (see table below).
  4. Review the bid history report from Winter 2024 to identify which courses you should prioritize based on their availability from last year.
  5. Review the special cases & exclusions section below for information on certificate courses, course prerequisites, and courses not included in the bidding process.
  6. Bid via the online Pre-Registration Bidding Portal in Salesforce.
    • Log in to the Salesforce
    • Rank and bid on your preferred courses.
  7. Check the status of your bids.
    • After you submit your bids, you may see the status of your course bids relative to other bids through the “Seat #” column.
  8. Adjusting your bids.
    • You may log in to the Salesforce and change your bids as often as you would like throughout the bidding period, though be advised that in tie-breaker situations, the timestamp of your final submission will be used.
  9. Bid Results
    • A few days after bidding closes, you may log in to the Salesforce and view your bid results. For the specific date and time bid results are available, check the Full-Time MBA Registration Calendar.
  10. Review instructions for finalizing your elective registration.

Notes on the Bidding Portal

  • The lowest valid bid is one point – a bid of zero will be discarded by the bidding portal.
  • The timestamp of a submitted bid is used as a tie-breaker, which gives an advantage to students who submit their bids early.

Problems or questions about registration? Contact [email protected].

Each quarter students are assigned bid points; the number of points correlates to the number of elective courses you plan to take. You will allocate these points to your course preferences. For Winter Quarter, the following point guidelines will be used:

Full-Time MBA Class of 2025
  • 60 points for 12 elective course credits (maximum number of credits you can be awarded during bidding)
  • 50 points for 10 elective course credits
  • 40 points for 8 elective course credits
  • 30 points for 6 elective course credits
  • 20 points for 4 elective course credits
  • 10 points for 2 elective course credits
Elective courses that are offered in both the daytime and the evening, Full-Time MBA students have priority into the daytime section and Evening MBA students have priority into the evening section. For elective courses that are offered only once during the academic year (either in the daytime or evening), there is no priority given to either student group.  Winter 2025 bidding priorities are available on the Canvas bidding resources page.

Winter Quarter electives that satisfy additional MBA degree requirements include:

  • International Perspective:
    • IBUS 500: Global Business Forum
    • IBUS 570: Study Tour to Guatemala
    • IBUS 570: Study Tour to Portugal
  • Practical Experience:
    • ENTRE 532: Software Entrepreneurship
    • ENTRE 579: Creative Destruction Lab (must register for Autumn 2024 and Winter 2025)
    • FIN 579: The Power of Access – Impact Lending to Underserved Communities
    • MKTG 535: Analytics Consulting Lab

Entrepreneurship Certificate Courses

Below is the required certificate course offered in Winter Quarter:

  • ENTRE 509: Foundations of Entrepreneurship

MBA Electives Excluded from the Bidding Process

  • Angel Investing, Board Fellows, Creative Destruction Lab, Software Entrepreneurship and The Power of Access: By application only. Students selected for the 2024-25 academic year will be registered by the MBA Program Office.
  • IBUS 579:  MBA Study Tour to Guatemala and Portugal. By application only. Click here for more information.
  • MGMT 579: Race, Culture, and Business MBA Immersion to the American South.  By application only. Click here for more information.
  • Independent Study is not included in the bidding process. See the Independent Study webpage for details. Please adhere to the registration deadlines.
  • Non-MBA Courses are not part of the bidding process. Permission required. If you are considering courses outside of the MBA Program, please read the policies relating to Non-MBA Courses.

As you decide to bid for various elective courses, you may use the Winter Quarter 2024 Bid History Report to identify which courses you should prioritize based on their availability from last year. The report details the status of each course at the end of bidding and how many seats were still available in them. You can find this report on the Canvas bidding resources page.