Add students to a class

Updated 19 September 2026

A class roster is what lets a graded paper belong to a person: it is the difference between a stack of marked pages and a gradebook column, and it is what emailing a student and pushing a grade to Classroom or Canvas both depend on. There are three ways to build one. Type students in one at a time on the class page. Paste your whole list into the Paste a class list box, which takes a column copied out of a spreadsheet, up to 500 rows, and shows you what it will add before it adds anything. Or import a course from Google Classroom or Canvas, which brings the roster with it. Rosters are a paid feature. After that, a paper can file itself from the name written on the page, and the second half of this page is about when it does and when it does not.

Building the roster

1
Make the class
Open Classes and press New class. It takes a name and an optional grade label, nothing else.
2
Add students one at a time, or paste the lot
The class page has a single Add student form, and a Paste a class list box for doing the whole roster at once.
3
Paste a column out of your gradebook
One student per line, name first and an optional email after it. Commas and tabs both count as separators, so a column copied straight out of a spreadsheet works as it is. A header row like Name, Email is spotted and skipped for you.
4
Check the preview before anything is written
It shows exactly what will be added and what will be skipped, with a reason on every skipped row. Nothing is written until you press Add.

What the paste box accepts

One student per line: Name first. Everything else on the line is optional.
Commas or tabs: Both separate fields, which is why a column copied out of a spreadsheet and a line out of a CSV both work.
Quotes around a field: Double quotes protect a separator inside a field, so "Ruiz, Ana" stays one name rather than becoming two.
A header row: Dropped when the first field reads Name, Student, Full name and similar, or when a later field reads Email.
Extra columns: Tolerated. The email is taken from the first field after the name that contains an @, so a period or an ID column in between is ignored.

How a paper finds the right student

When a paper is graded, the name written on it is compared with your roster. What happens next depends on how strong the best match is and on whether anyone else comes close.

A strong, unambiguous match files itself: An exact name, or a first and last name that both match, is filed straight away. The essay row then reads, in the product’s own words: Filed from the name on the paper.
A weaker match is offered, never taken: A same surname, or a name one or two letters out, becomes a suggestion with a one-tap confirm: The paper reads X. Is that Student Name? It is not filed until you say so.
A tie is treated as no match: If two roster names score within a whisker of each other, neither is used. Two students called Ava fall to this case on purpose.
No match is saved untagged: The row reads: The paper reads X, which didn’t match anyone on the roster. Tag it in Review. The grade is already saved either way.

A batch of essays that finishes with unmatched papers stays on the grading screen with a panel for exactly those rows, rather than sending you to Review to hunt for them. Student names are never asked for before grading: a class of 24 would be 24 dropdowns filled in at the moment you know least.

What this will not do

Rosters are on paid plans. Classes, students, assignments and the analytics that sit on them are Pro and above. Grading itself does not need any of it: you can grade a stack with no class, no assignment and no roster at all, and the marked pages are still saved to Review.

It will not guess between two students with the same first name. When two roster names score close together, the match is treated as no match and the paper waits for you. A grade on the wrong child is worse than a grade with no name on it, so the tie is left for a human.

It reads what is written, not who sits where. A page with no name on it, or a name that matches nobody, is saved untagged. There is no handwriting-identification of any kind: if the student did not write a name, nothing can recover it.

Nicknames are not resolved. Matching handles accents, punctuation, a middle initial, a missing surname and small spelling slips. It does not know that Kate is Katherine. Add the name the student actually writes, or tag those papers by hand.

Common questions

Can I upload a CSV file of my class list?

Not as a file. The import is a paste box rather than a file picker, but it parses the same thing a CSV holds: one student per line, fields separated by commas or tabs, with quotes protecting a comma inside a name such as "Ruiz, Ana". Open the CSV, copy the column, paste it in. A header row is detected and dropped.

What does it do with the email column?

The email is the first field after the name that contains an @, so extra columns between them, a period or a student ID, do not break it. An entry that is not a usable address is left off rather than stored, and the row is still added with the badge Email ignored. Email is optional throughout; it is only needed to send a student their marked paper.

How many students can I paste at once?

Up to 500 rows in one paste. Rows past that are listed and skipped rather than silently dropped, and the same 500 limit is enforced on the server, so nothing gets through by going round the box. There is no limit in the code on how many classes or students an account can hold in total.

What happens if I paste the same list twice?

Nothing bad. Names already on the roster are skipped, and repeats inside the same paste are collapsed to one. That is deliberate so you can paste an updated class list without cleaning it first. Two real students who share a name are still allowed, because there is no uniqueness rule on names.

A paper was filed under the wrong student. How do I fix it?

Open it in Review and change the student in the tagging control; it saves as you change it. Re-grading a paper never re-runs name matching and never re-files it, precisely so a re-grade cannot move one student’s work onto another student’s row.

What happens to graded papers if I delete a class or a student?

The papers survive. Deleting a class removes the class and its roster and clears that tag off the papers, and the confirmation says so before you agree to it. Archiving a student hides them and untags their papers rather than deleting anything. If you want the work itself gone, delete the papers.