Bidding Bonanza #3 - Minesweeper boom edition

Bidding results were released last week, and things did not go very well for me...once again. I didn't realize that the results were out because I was head-down in the work I was doing, but I knew something was up when I saw 18 emails between my friends at school in a 5-minute stretch of time. That prompted me to check and learn that I had only gotten into 1 class: MORS-468 - Managerial Leadership with Professor Kraemer (who graces my banner above).  I just barely outbid the minimum clearing price by 20 points.

On the one hand, I'm bummed that I didn't get my superstar line-up; apparently, I am not as good at it as Miami, though I just wanted to do what was best for Orlando O'Neill. On the other hand, I'm really glad that I didn't get all of my initial picks, because it forces me to go back and take a harder look at classes. Unfortunately, I let myself get swayed way too much by the teacher rankings when selecting classes. Normally, my approach to selecting a class is to:

1. Check for classes that I'm targeting, like Managerial Leadership, and bid the highest clearing price from the last couple of years plus some premium...say 100-150 points. I usually end up targeting classes that I hear about from classmates and fit well into my interests.
2. Next, I search the course catalog by Course Name for anything that sounds interesting. I tend to prefer classes in majors that I'm interested in, but I am willing to bid on classes that fall outside of those majors as well.
3. If the Course Name piques my curiosity enough, then I'll check the student ratings for the professor teaching that course. I focus on the professor and course ratings, and then follow it up with the workload rating (no more repeats of last quarter :) ). This is where I'm weak; if the ratings aren't as good as I'd like, I won't bid on the class. Instead, I'll opt to either not take it or else wait to take it another quarter with a different professor.
4. Finally, I read over the course synopsis to confirm that it is something I'd be interested in taking. If the description is way out there, then I won't bid on it.

The second round of bidding is underway, so I went ahead and placed bids on 3 more classes. I am on the wait list for 2 of my original classes, and I'm hoping that I'll at least get into Financial Decisions.