Stress, excitement, fear, relief — these are just a few of the words CHS students use to describe registration. This year, students and staff took on the biannual tradition of an unconventional, in-person registration for semester 2 classes on Dec. 6. As controversial as this day is, registration has been a long-standing tradition at CHS.

While other AAPS have their students sign up for classes online, CHS chooses a different take in-person, arena style.The registration process begins about a week before the actual registration day when students are given a master schedule of all the class offerings for the upcoming semester.

Following the release of the master schedule, students receive their registration number during Forum. This number tells them their placement in the registration line for their grade level, seniors being the first to register, while freshmen go last. A low number means you’re near the front of the line and a high number means you’re near the end of the line — with about 130 students in each grade level. Since a student’s number determines their place in line, it can also have an impact on them getting into the more popular classes.

Desmond Lorenz didn’t let the fact that of his number putting him at the end of the line stop him from making his schedule work out.

“I talked to a teacher beforehand, just to see if there was any way I could get a spot in the class,” Lorenz said. “But you know, that’s just trying to plan ahead because I had a higher number of 107.”

Regardless of your number, registration takes a lot of planning beforehand; it is recommended that everyone drafts multiple versions of their hypothetical schedule in case a class they wanted is full. But as teachers and counselors will tell you, there’s always a way to work your schedule out whether you walk out of registration happy with your schedule or looking to change classes. It’s the reason they hold a drop/add period in the weeks following registration– Lorenz shares this testament.

“I felt it was pretty easy,” Lorenz said. “I feel like it’s overhyped a little bit. Generally you get the classes you want. If not, you can generally work something out with the teacher.I thought when I got in, there would be a ton of classes that were already closed, but there were only two. They were both classes basically for seniors.”

Opinions and emotions aside, Lorenz has lots of advice to help freshmen going through registration for the first time, his greatest piece of advice being: “Don’t worry about it too much, just focus on getting an English class,” Lorenz said.