# Apply to Take the Course

## Welcome!

The course will officially start on March 11th, 2026. Applications will be open on February 2nd, and will close on March 8th, 11:59 PM EDT. Excited to teach you all for Spring 2026!

Note: You can feel free to self-enroll in Student Center for 2 credits once you've received a submission comment that you're eligible to enroll :)

## 1. Submit Course Application

A friendly reminder to apply if you haven't already! We use the application to evaluate how prepared our students are for the course, get some demographic data, and get the list of student NetIDs for adding people to CMS for submitting assignments.

#### Course Application Here: <https://www.cornellappdev.com/courses/backend>

## 2. Submit assignment 0 (A0)

In past semesters, we've had a very simple pretest in Python for students to submit and gauge their readiness for the course. In Spring 2020, we waived the pretest requirement and found that there were students who struggled with Python and would have benefited from taking the course a semester later or after they have had a bit more experience with coding.&#x20;

Unfortunately, codePost, where we once hosted the test, is no longer in service. Instead, we now have an identical completion-based assignment. Think of this as a helpful indicator of how ready you are to take the course (or what you need to do to be ready) and how you can balance your semester!

{% hint style="info" %}
If you have questions or any issues about this, don't hesitate to reach out to <cornellappdev@gmail.com>.&#x20;
{% endhint %}

### Download, unzip, and start coding in the pretest starter code

You are **not allowed** to use the following functions: `sum()` , `min()`, and any kind of sorting function such as `list.sort()` as that defeats the purpose of the assignment!

{% file src="/files/5EKV9DrYXsWgBZAorY7O" %}
Assignment 0 Starter Code
{% endfile %}

{% hint style="warning" %}
Don't be intimidated by the starter code! A0 only requires a ***very*** **basic** understanding of lists, classes, dictionaries, and loops, and you'll be surprised at how quickly you can complete it once you get started. Feel free to look things up online if you don't know something! If you are still concerned, don't worry; we've also had many past students successfully complete the course without ever having taken CS 1110.&#x20;
{% endhint %}

## 3. Enroll in Student Center

Once you've completed A0, you can enroll on CS 1998 Sec 603 on Student Center anytime before March 11th at 11:59 PM. The course number is **16289**.

{% hint style="danger" %}
The add deadline of March 11th at 11:59 PM is a **very strict** deadline (7wk2 class add deadline), meaning that the registrar will not permit any exceptions. We have had issues in the past and were not able to grant everyone who took the course credit because of this, so please keep that in mind!
{% endhint %}

{% hint style="warning" %}
The drop deadline is April 8th, 2026. We'll update this if anything changes. Refer to this [webpage](https://registrar.cornell.edu/calendar/2025-2026) for the key academic dates for this semester! If you are taking the course and are worried about passing, we'll give you an estimate before you need to drop! Almost all students pass, though, so this shouldn't be your worry at all :)
{% endhint %}

## **4. Congrats and let's get ready!**

{% content-ref url="/pages/-M16sflzQ7-eOmqr9r6j" %}
[Getting Started](/getting-started.md)
{% endcontent-ref %}


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