FAQ

1. How fast is the course notifier?

   Fast. The course notifier can scan 10,000 SLNs every 5 seconds. This means that at MOST there is typically a 5 to 10 second gap between your SLN being checked. This means that your registered SLN is being checked for an opening on average 17,280 times per day.

2. What if there are multiple students registered for the same course?

   Early bird gets the worm. Unfortunately, if there are multiple people waiting on the same course, they will receive their notifications just as fast as you will. That means that when you get your notification, you better rush to a nearby computer!

3. Can I pay some fee to be notified first?

   Although this practice was considered (even a bidding style system was considered), we concluded it would not be fair to the students. UW Robot is supposed to take the pain out of registration, not to cause more aggravation. Just be happy that the statistics are in your favor if you're registered with UW Robot.

4. Is UW Robot an official tool of the University?

   NO. UW Robot is a privately run tool to help the students. It is in no way associated with the University of Washington.

5. If I buy a notifier, a course opening is found, but I don't get in, do I have to buy it again?

   No! You can simply reactivate your notifier, free of charge. We know that merely being notified of a course opening doesn't guarantee you'll get the spot, and we didn't think it was fair to force people to pay again, so don't worry, you don't have to!

6. Your tools used to be free! What gives?

   Unfortunately popularity bit us! Last quarter we had over 11,000 registered users. What started as a small $20/month investment has become much more than that now. We need to charge a small fee to cover our costs. It was either that or shut down the service, which would have been very unfortunate.

   The good news is that by charging a fee, we have been able to expand our notification options to use an official text message gateway and even AIM as a notification option. More notification methods are on the way!

7. Are there any free alternatives?

   I'm not actively aware of any, but UW Robot has been running for 2 years now and is very mature and stable. As a point of comparison: The first version of UW Robot 2 years ago could only check a single SLN once every 5 minutes. We can now check 10,000 SLNs every 5 seconds.