Courses do not "fill up" as requests come in, and there is no "seniority" consideration for returning Scholars.
Once everyone's requests are in, we perform scheduling in the order that we received the requests. This does not mean, however, that those who submit first necessarily receive all of their first choices.
We work very hard to schedule Scholars in as many of their top choices as possible. As we perform scheduling, inevitably the combination of choices results in our moving one Scholar from first choice to second in order to prevent another Scholar from not receiving a first choice at all. The very last course request submitted can impact the very first submitted.
We encourage you to be prompt with submitting your requests though wish to make clear there is not necessarily a distinct advantage to submitting first. We guarantee all Scholars will receive at least one first-choice course.