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Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to take the chemistry placement test?

If you would like to enroll in Accelerated General Chemistry (115) or skip General Chemistry I (111) and enroll directly into General Chemistry II (112) at any point in your college career and you did NOT receive a 4 or 5 on the chemistry AP test or a 5 or better on the IB chemistry exam, then the online chemistry placement test is for you. Only students who have not previously enrolled in Chemistry 111 are eligible to take the placement test. Eligible students who meet the above requirements may schedule to take the Chemistry Placement Test by contacting Marc Rodwogin, Chemistry Laboratory Supervisor, at [email protected].

ChemDraw demands a serial number that I don’t have; what do I do?

Can I download Spartan, ChemDraw, and Wintropy to my personal computer?

Yes! Go to ITS Software Download page for a the appropriate installation guide and download link.

Why is Spartan asking me to activate or license my copy of it?

There are three possible reasons for this:

  1. You are attempting to set up and run Spartan from off campus. Macalester uses a networked keyserver with a campus-only firewall. In English, that means you will only be able to run Spartan if you are getting your internet service from on campus. Alternately, you may download and setup VPN (gdoc) to run the software remotely.
  2. You are using something other than Spartan Student, and all licenses are in use. This is only plausible (we think, unless people turn out to really dig Spartan) when a chemistry class is using Spartan for a lab, thus during the day on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, or at night on Monday or Wednesday. If it is one of those times, please just wait until later; you will be forcibly cut off from the license server if the class doesn’t have enough license seats to do its work!  Spartan Student has no headcount limit – you can use that any time you wish.
  3. Your internet connection, or Macalester’s, is not working, or your own firewall program is blocking the port that the license manager uses (unlikely, but confirm you can reach the Macalester website, and you can try turning your firewall off temporarily to check to see if it is blocking the license host program on your machine from contacting the keyserver).