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My PhD supervisor cannot promise me a date to defend my dissertation before my visa expires. Should I just quit my PhD and start over?
I am doing my PhD in Germany and I’m under a three year DFG grant, which ends in September, and with it my visa. Although I can get an 18-month visa to find a job after my PhD, this won’t be granted until after my defense (when I get my certificate).
My supervisor had no idea that my residence in Germany depends on my employment contract/grant with the university.
I asked him if I could submit my dissertation at the end of July and be guaranteed a defense date in September. He told me cannot guarantee this and that I’ll just have to submit my defense earlier.
I don’t want to rush my writing (I’m technically submitting my PhD early already) so finishing earlier than July is out of the question. But if I don’t get a defense date in September, I will have to leave Germany and come back to defend it. I come from a country that requires a Schengen visa, so coming back won’t be as easy as hopping on a plane.
Right now I am seriously considering submitting my thesis in July and then flying back at the end of September with or without a defense date.  If I don’t get a defense date then I effectively quit my PhD.
What should I do? Any advice would be appreciated.
EDIT 1: Thanks for all of your advice. I'm slowly going through it.
I asked my supervisor if I can do it remotely and he said that Skype-ing for dissertation panels is not allowed. So he won't even consider a virtual presentation.
EDIT 2: My supervisor and I had a meeting and we discussed a few options. Since we are inviting a professor in the US to the panel, it is in everyone's best interest to have a tough timeline in mind. The timeline we selected is within the validity period of my current permit. Still no guarantees as anything could go wrong, but it's better than nothing.
Thanks again for those of you who gave thoughtful responses. To those of you who thought my question "makes no sense", I apologize deeply for my profound ignorance and I'm sorry that you didn't find my question relevant, unlike many people here. (Ironically my thesis is about online communities and how some more established members treat less active ones.)

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. In particular, please do not attempt to answer a question in the comments.

@iamnarra If you want useful information, then you need to provide us with basis to give you that. For example, what's exactly your current status? Are you a student? Are you an employee of the university? What's your visa/residence permit type? When exactly does your current residence permit expire? The date on the document is very important!!!

@AndrejaKo I'm not looking here for immigration advice and I'm not comfortable disclosing all that information on the internet. I'm sure you can understand.

@iamnarra I do understand, but immigration advice is directly related to your question. Therefore, there's nit much to say other than speak to international office and hope that their workers know someyhing. Good luck!

The premises of your question are needlessly all-or-nothing. "Quitting your PhD" is a misrepresentation of what would happen... It would simply be that the completion is delayed, not just "cancelled forever". To think of "quitting" because of delays is a huge over-reaction, and makes no sense.

@paulgarrett Well like I said, if I do have to leave and can't get a visa where I am now, it's not so easy to return immediately. I would have to wait for months to be granted even a TOURIST visa. Judging from your comment you probably don't know what that feels like. So yes, it will be delayed to the point where I'm worried I might get left behind. I am not aware of what my options are, hence why I am asking. But thanks for your helpful comment and I'm sorry you think my concerns make no sense.

To endure a delay of a few months is not nearly as bad as truly "starting over" in a PhD program, surely? That's why I think proposing that is a non-sequitur. (Although I've not experienced visa problems myself, many of my research students have, as well as others for whom I've had responsibility. I am trying to take such things into account in my comment... )

@paulgarrett Then  maybe you could have said "don't worry, it's not as bad as you think" instead of dismissing my concerns as nonsense? Seeing as I received a number of thoughtful responses to my nonsense concerns, I suppose it was still worth my time to ask.

(Sorry, in U.S. English, "to think of quitting entirely because of X makes no sense" means "don't do it", not that concerns "are nonsense". I can imagine that you are uneasy in this situation, but I and others reasonably speculate that you are over-reacting, and, indeed, should worry less... That was in fact my point. Not dismissive, etc. Rather, "don't contemplate such radical steps"... )

I'm sorry, but half my family is based in America and I have spent significant amounts of my childhood visiting the US and have plenty of American friends, but this is the first time I've ever heard of this. Thanks for trying though!

You should talk immediately with the International Office (or equivalent) at your university, as well as any student-coordinated offices at your university. This is by no means the first time that they will have dealt with such a situation. Usually there are workarounds available—for instance, you could be extended on a part-time contract for a few months while waiting for the defense to be completed. You certainly do not need to be employed full-time to qualify for a visa—you just have to be able to show sufficient income, which even a 50% contract would be enough to satisfy.
However, I should point out that, depending on the university, there is no way to guarantee that you can turn in your thesis in July and be able to defend it in September. For instance, in the faculty where I used to work, reviewers were given three months to review a thesis. So if you turned in your thesis in July, you probably would not be able to have a defense before the beginning of November. You'll need to check the regulations for your program to see when the defense can be scheduled relative to the thesis being handed in.
Moreover, the "art" of scheduling a thesis defense requires getting enough examiners together at the same time, never an easy task in the German system.
However, to answer your main question, don't you think that quitting and starting over is counterproductive? If you're already writing a thesis, that shows you're relatively near to completion, and that your advisor thinks you're ready to move on. Giving that up because of the logistics of scheduling a PhD defense seems very shortsighted. Why would you not think that the same thing couldn't happen if you started over and worked somewhere else? Since you're so close to finishing, get it done!

A slight addition to this: Just because the supervisor cannot guarantee a defense date, doesn’t mean that it that a timely defense cannot happen or is even unlikely. As long as the regulations permit this, all you need to do is select a committee of people who have the time and will to review your thesis quickly.

Also, while I don't think I've ever seen anyone actually doing this, I don't think there is a practical reason why a defense couldn't be done remotely through something like Google Hangouts; Worth at least asking if the examiners would be OK with that.

@Cubic I've certainly participated in a US thesis defense remotely (and our university has rules about how many and which examiners can participate remotely), but I don't know about the German system.

@Kimball Germany isn't that different from most other places in the world... in that there's no real central system. The federal government doesn't have much of a say in education, so it varies from state to state, and the state governments usually let universities self-organise, certainly for details like how examinations are done. Universities in turn usually don't micro manage their individual faculties, which in turn are fairly hands-off with their professors...

@Wrzlprmft: This is true, but I’m also sure that there is a minimum time that must elapse between submission and defense just because of the rules—the availability of responses within the faculty and time to respond, a waiting period between the submission and the release of the thesis to the reviewers, and so on.

@aeismail: Hence (amongst others), “as long as the regulations permit this”. At my alma mater the prescribed or inevitable waiting times summed up to less than a month. On the other hand at my new faculty, you can hand in your thesis only at five fixed dates per semester and the defense has to happen less than two months after this.

It is important to add, not to rely on the International Office. Traditionally German Universities can be quite unhelpful to students (its the opposite in the US, there the university considers the students as their repsonsibility), in Germany they consider the student as an applicant whose applications will be handled by law. Luckily admins are getting more and more mellow, but depending on the school one shoudnt solely rely on it.

German universities are not like universities in the US or UK. The university works for the state, not for the students. If there are no readily available answers, they're not willing to go out on a limb to find it out for you.

@iamnarra You're right about the university. You should go to the Studentenwerk, specifically the Akademisches Auslandsamt, or equivalent at your university. They are a separate institution paid for by the students and working for them. They should at least be willing to help you.

@iamnarra I worked at a German university for six years. There are resources for helping students, and this is exactly the kind of situation where there should be “readily available answers.” But you have to reach out to them.

@lalala: "It is important to add, not to rely on the International Office. Traditionally German Universities can be quite unhelpful to students" - while it's true that the mentality in German universities generally aims for students acting as autonomous individuals that are responsible for their own progress rather than relying on university guidance, the "international office" is usually explicitly meant to provide advice and support in precisely the kind of administrative difficulty specific to international students like what the OP describes here.

I think the easiest way to resolve your dilemma is to apply for an extension of your stay in Germany.
Even though you got your visa in your home country, you don't necessarily have to go back to your home country to apply for an extension of your stay — the relevant authority is called Ausländerbehörde (officially Landesamt für Bürger- und Ordnungsangelegenheiten — LABO). (Having to return to your home country might apply if you are a tourist applying for a new tourist visa — in any case, this should not apply to you.)
Since you are studying for a PhD at a recognized university/institution, you might have to apply for a new student visa (if you're currently on a work/tourist visa, say), or simply for an extension of your student visa.
Being enrolled as a student is enough here — even after your scholarship/grant expires, you stay a student until you graduate (i.e. defend your thesis). Of course you cannot stay a student forever and there is a limit to finishing your PhD studies, but it's longer than three years (usually more like seven).
Depending how big your city is, getting the necessary documents and an appointment at the Ausländerbehörde might take some time (usually 6-8 weeks for the first appointment), so it's better to get to it right away. It's good to have some help with all of this, so please get the International Office of your university involved.
Of course, quitting and starting over is a ridiculous idea, as everyone has said.

I am in a slightly similar situation as OP (Masters student in Germany - First semester) and your advice seems like common sense. I know many fellow students from non Schengen countries studying here who have taken way more than 2 years to finish their masters degree. Most students take 3 actually. If they all can get their visa extended, why can't OP?

It may very well be that the PhD student is employed by the university and hence is not in the possession of a student visa. So the situation may be different to those on scholarships or grants.

@DCTLib Yes, but being a student, they are able to apply for a student visa from within Germany, even if currently on a work visa.

You need to prove that you have money to support yourself. The money in my bank might not be enough, especially if assembling a panel takes 3-6 months.

Now you're asking a different question — "how do I support myself financially after my scholarship expires until my defence?". I don't know your financial situation. Can your parents lend you money just for the visa application? For what it is worth, I know that the rules are not hard rules. You cannot be denied the application if you satisfy all the requirements. But satisfying all the requirements is not always necessary to be granted an extension. Having a letter from the university explaining the situation and asking for you to be given the time to graduate can help your case immensely.

@Earthliŋ: 'Now you're asking a different question — "how do I support myself financially after my scholarship expires until my defence?"' - not necessarily. The amount of money that they actually need to sustain themselves may be lower than the amount that is required on the account for getting a visa. Furthermore, the OP may not be planning on staying the entire time, anyway, but just need a guarantee that they can come back in time for their defense on relatively short notice.

Talk to the relevant office in your institution.
You're unlikely to be the first person in this situation, and there are most likely ways to get your visa extended or renewed.

I don’t want to rush my writing so finishing earlier than July is out of the question....I am seriously considering submitting my thesis in July and then fly back at the end of September with or without defense date. If I don’t get a defense date then I effectively quit my PhD.
What should I do? Any advice would be appreciated.

While you said you're unwilling to rush your writing (it's out of the question), you also said that any advice would be appreciated.
Your advisor has advised you:

He told me ... that I’ll just have to submit my defense earlier.

He believes you'll be able to do so to the standards required.  It may be that your standards are higher than the reviewer's standards, or that he believes you can meet their standards in the time frame you need to.
In the absence of better information, I'd trust your advisor's assessment of your abilities, and work towards that goal.
If you run into issues, or need assistance, ask him for tools, techniques, services, and whatever other assistance you need that you may currently be unaware of.  You might be surprised to learn, for instance, that there are resources dedicated to helping you with aspects of your work which you are currently unaware of.
Even if you disagree with your advisor, and cannot see a way to submit the kind of work you want to be known for, you should consider that it's better to submit your best possible work within the timeframe given than it is to abandon your work altogether.
It may be painful to let go of the ideal and settle or compromise on something less than your absolute best work, however you have a goal and a deadline, and if that cannot be resolved, then you shouldn't throw what you have away.

And, regarding that last point, you'll find in both academia and the industry that oftentimes deadlines are more important than polish, and a person who can do good work to a deadline is more valuable than a person who does perfect work but misses the deadline.

If I don’t get a defence date then I effectively quit my PhD

Not necessarily, it's perfectly possible to obtain a visa to come back for the defence.
However, it's best to avoid having extra travel costs, visa costs, losing time, and taking the risk of missing your defence because of a delayed visa. You should try to extend your current visa to cover the defence. Don't wait until the defence date is known, try to clarify your situation as early as possible.
While your first contact should be the person responsible for foreign students at your university, I advise you to clarify the situation directly with the relevant government agencies: Ausländerbehörde or Auslandersamt. In the worst case, you will hear the same story twice. However, if the view of your situation by the the agencies is different, you should know that the decision about your visa will be taken by government officials alone, and it will not depend on what university staff told or promised you.

What do you mean by "Ausländerbehörde or Auslandersamt" and "same story twice". As far as I know "Ausländeramt" is just a different name for Ausländerbehörde (the official name is again different, see my answer).

@Earthliŋ By "same story twice" I mean that people at Ausländerbehörde may tell the OP the same things people at the uni told him. Or they may tell him something different, at which point he should listen to what they say, not the uni.

First of all, you should change your mind from QUIT to COMPLETE your PhD.
So once you decide to complete your PhD, then you will definitely find a number of favorable ways how to do it. I can understand your situation at this moment, but never feel alone to take a right decision.
So as suggested by aeismail and others, there must be a division in your University who takes care of the International students.
So PLEASE visit that division in your university and ask them that how can you extend your VISA and can work somewhere part-time to support your staying.


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Is is ethical to not compensate experiment participants who withdraw from the study?
I do experiments on learning and instruction for my dissertation. They are almost no risks in participating in our studies--except maybe boredom since they tend to run for 30 minutes to 1 hour. We get a lot of unmotivated students who don't really take the experiment tasks seriously. But in spite of this, they never get penalized if they complete the experiment. That means they get their compensation (money or course credit) and we don't check their answers before they walk out of the lab.
However, what should I do if a student withdraws participation? Should they still be given monetary compensation or course credit? Would it be ethical to specify that they will only be compensated if they complete the study? This hasn't happened to me yet, but I am running an online study and it will be harder to keep track of whether participants really complete the study or not.

Have you considered redesigning your experiment so it becomes more interesting for students to take? Also, consider instead of using monetary compensation to provide some refreshments and snacks during the experiment.

@YetAnotherGeek Yes, definitely, or at least reducing experiment time to a bare minimum. I'm quite lucky that I'm given funding to pay my participants. Otherwise, we'll lose them to other research groups in our faculty who do pay.

Slightly OT: You mention that "we get a lot of unmotivated students who don't really take the experiment tasks seriously," and seem to suggest that such students get paid, when they "walk out of the lab." Presumably you mean that some students complete the experiment as fast as possible? This can be avoided by fixing the length of your experiment. Or, at least, telling students that the length of the experiment is fixed. (If they are sitting idle, because they have finished, then you might as well ask them to leave.)

I have served on the IRB at two research institutions. The first question I would ask is what does your consent form state about how subjects are compensated if they withdraw? As of this point, if you do not indicate such in your consent form, you should compensate the subjects what you promised (whether they withdraw or not) until the end of the study or you amend your IRB protocol.
If this is a problem with a number of subjects, I suggest amending your IRB protocol. Is your study is minimal risk, an approval should (typically) not take a long amount of time. It is not uncommon to prorate compensation. For instance, those who initiate the study, but do not complete the study can receive half or some other fraction of the compensation. If your IRB approves this, it would still compensate all participants, but give additional incentive for completing the study.
You could amend so that those who withdraw from the study do not receive any compensation, but IRBs tend to frown upon this, so you may waste time waiting for the IRB to request a change to your amendment.
Whatever you do, you should not break protocol from what your IRB has already approved. You can also talk to a representative of the IRB and ask what they suggest for an amendment - this could approve your amendment request faster.

I don't see any ethical problem in not compensating people for work they don't do. However, you still have to frame the problem in a clear way in order to avoid frustration/litigations. Just write down explicitely that a student will receive compensation only if he/she completes the test.
As for motivating students to give you meaningful answer, that is a completely different story, and a much more complex one.

Providing course credit and monetary compensation are very different.
In terms of monetary compensation, the IRBs that I am aware of want to make sure that the money does not influence the subject's consent. Paying a subject $1000 for an hour of their time would probably be considered an undue inducement. Paying a subject $1000 for 100 hours of their time would be considered a reasonable reimbursement for their time and inconvenience. If, however, the payment is based on completing the study, then after they complete 99 hours of the study, they would effectively be paid $1000 for that last hour and the IRB is not going to be happy. For a 1 hour study, an IRB might not go either way; $10 or whatever the payment is, is never likely an undue inducement, but $10 is also not an unreasonable inconvenience allowance for 15 minutes. Whatever you decided, you need to get IRB approval.
Class credit is a whole different issue (cf. Are there ethical guidelines prohibiting penalties against potential research subjects who have not yet provided consent?) In my experience, students need to be given an alternative that provides the same learning objectives. In my old department we decided that that learning objective was not meet until the study was completed. Therefore, no class credit was given until the study, or alternative assignment, was completed. Again, whatever you decide, check with your IRB.

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Are studies published in conference proceedings well-regarded in social sciences fields (e.g., psychology)?
First, a bit of context. I have a BA in psychology and an MSc in an interdisciplinary field (educational sciences/learning analytics) that is a combination of psychology, educational sciences and computer sciences. I am completing a PhD in this same interdisciplinary field with a research group that is technically under the Engineering and Computer Science faculty of our university. My supervisor and all my colleagues have degrees in psychology (i.e., none of us are computer scientists).
I am about to finish a cumulative dissertation made up of:

a literature review published in a high impact factor journal
an extension of the literature review published in the proceedings of the annual conference in our community.
a quasi-experiment that will be published in the proceedings of the annual conference in our community.

The international research community in rather small (about 300-400 people attend the annual conference). The acceptance rate to the annual conference is quite low (average 30% of 400 full paper submissions are accepted). I quite like that it's small and interdisciplinary, but it does raise a few questions as to what constitutes a proper publication. I have plenty of colleagues who consider themselves computer scientists and they consider conference proceedings to be publications. However, my psychologist colleagues tell me that journal articles are still much better than conference proceedings.
Does anyone have any insight on how well-regarded conference proceedings are in social sciences? More specifically, should I be worried about hurting my chances of getting a postdoc position in psychology-leaning research groups because I don't have any experiments published in an academic journal?

This sounds like a great question for your adviser. This seems difficult to answer for someone who isn't in your admittedly niche field. Also, naming the field specifically in your OP might be helpful. I can already come up with two possibilities based on what you've said (human-computer interaction and education technology)

@StellaBiderman Edited my post to include the name of my field. Maybe I was also looking for a more general opinion from people in interdisciplinary fields that include psychology. My adviser is biased towards journals of course, coming from a psych background.

I have worked at the intersection of psychology, educational sciences and computer sciences and there was always friction between the computer scientists who wanted to publish in conferences and the non-computer scientists who wanted to publish in journals. I think most psychologists who deal with computer scientists know about the conference culture, and most computer scientists that deal with psychologists know about the journal culture. That said, I believe, it is much easier for a computer scientist to get an idea about how competitive a journal is compared to a psychologist trying to understand how competitive a conference proceeding is.
If your plan is to stay in Psychology and you have the choice about conference or journal publications, then all things being equal, go with journal publications. If you want to go to the conference or you are getting pressure to publish in conference proceedings, then it is no big deal, although, there are even differences between conference proceedings and journals in computer science so you probably want to prove you can write/publish a full article.

I've observed the same thing, working in social network analysis between the polisci and sociology people on the one hand and the CS/math people on the other.

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Is it usual for graduate programs not to find suitable candidates even among a large pool of applicants?
About a month ago I applied for a PhD position in Germany under a research training group funded by the German Research Council. There are 12 open positions for this program. Before I applied I was told that promising candidates will be contacted in July. Then I heard that the department received nearly 200 applications for 12 open positions. I was a little disheartened but I thought I would wait July out before giving up hope.
But then I found out today that the department reposted the job ad to advertise the same position, with a new deadline! I haven't heard back from them about my application, so I don't even know if I'm allowed to reapply, or if I have been effectively rejected and probably should move on.
I guess my question is: is it usual not to find any suitable candidates from such a large pool, or is the admissions panel just being too picky?
EDIT 1 (23/7): The program is interdisciplinary, they're looking for a wide range of backgrounds within two main disciplines (one of them I have 3 degrees in and the other I have explicitly expressed my keen interest). Because of that the program will also have a series of lectures and seminars to introduce students from one discipline to the theories and methods of the other. They're even allowing them to join master level courses! So it doesn't seem like they're looking for the perfect fit necessarily.
EDIT 2 (23/7): They did have a terrible application portal when I first applied. So maybe the first round of applications was so disorganized they want everyone to apply again. But I didn't get an email encouraging me to reapply
UPDATE (23/7): I was told that my application is still under review, and I don't need to reapply. Yay!
UPDATE (17/11): Just wanted to edit this post to say that I did end up getting that PhD. Thank you everyone for keeping my anxiety at bay!

Have you considered that they may be late in making a decision and are extending the deadline to continue collecting candidates?

Perhaps, although with 200~ applicants I would think they'd at least find a handful they're interested in and they don't need any more applications to read through.

I have made a new title suggestion in response to the close votes. If you disagree, you can rollback to your version.

Also consider that affirmative actions (positive Diskriminierung als politische Maßnahme) can take influence here also. Some public German authorities are forced to reach a target percentage of women, handicapped persons or people with a migration background.Maybe in the first application round there were too many white/male/straight/Christian/German natives and they re-opened the deadline in hope of a more diverse applicant pool.

Thanks @André Kleinschmidt, that is also a possibility. They did mention that affirmative action rule in the job ad. Funnily enough I am a non-German female from a non-Western country...I'm still waiting to hear what happened to my first application before reapplying.

I guess my question is: is it usual not to find any suitable candidates from such a large pool, or is the admissions panel just being too picky?

As somebody who recently did not hire a single candidate from a pool of about 100 applicants, I can say that it is indeed possible that they just did not find enough good people.
We were looking for a PhD student in computer science, with a focus on software and cloud engineering. We put out announcements to a few of the widely-distributed mailing lists in the field. Here's roughly what happened:

A few candidates had completely inappropriate backgrounds. E.g., one applicant had a master in biology.
About 30% to 40% of the applicants were computer scientists, but with a completely different specialisation in their undergrad and master. For instance, many students applied who used to work on theory, AI or Machine Learning. We are not interested in such backgrounds.
Easily more than 50% of the applicants, based on their application material,  did not have a sufficient command of the English language.
More than half of the applicants came from Asian universities where we did not know the university nor the professors writing the letters. All of them had reasonable grades and positive but very generic letters. Most had done internships at companies we have never heard of. As we had no way to distinguish the good from the bad students with those (to us) seemingly identical application materials, we deemed the risk too high.
About 25% of the applicants had, or pretended to have, multiple papers in predatory open access journals. The few times I actually looked up these papers, I was either unable to find them, or they were obviously of very low quality.
The vast majority of applications were supremely generic, and obviously sent in identical form to any PhD student posting in a Western university.

At the end of the day, we found 3 or 4 candidates that we were genuinely interested in, and after Skype interviews etc. it just did not work out with any of them.

Thanks @xLeitix! This really put things in perspective! The thing is, the program is interdisciplinary, they're looking for a wide range of backgrounds within two main disciplines (one of them I have 3 degrees in and the other I have explicitly expressed my keen interest). Because of that the program will also have a series of lectures and seminars to introduce students from one discipline to the theories and methods of the other. They're even allowing them to join master level courses! So it doesn't seem like they're looking for the perfect fit, and I thought I'd shown some potential.

@iamnarra My impression is that in a highly interdisciplinary program, you need to be even more selective in terms of backgrounds. You don't want people with backgrounds in A or B, but rather with A and at least a little bit of B, or vice versa.

In the Netherlands jobless people are also obliged to apply for jobs in order to receive their benefits, and I think Germany is the same. And there are way more jobless people than vacancies. It's not unusual that over 50% of the applications are from people who have no chance whatsoever (cleaner without any schooling applying as academic software developer) and are obviously just sending the same letter to all job openings they see.

@RemcoGerlich I don't think that is a big factor in PhD student applications.

@xLeitix fair enough. It's just disappointing because I put in so much effort in explaining in my statements how I have the skills and research/work experience (albeit tangential) to succeed in Field B.

realistically PhD is a job.  the degree is part of the pay and it is easier to get a visa for it.  the kinds of candidates you want can get jobs where they are paid in money.  the kinds of candidates you get come from cultures that covet degrees and need visas.  perhaps you should pay for work with money.

I hope that just because they had a biology background they were not rejected out-of-hand! Being recently on the market, I will be finishing my degree in Neuroscience soon and primarily applied to Computer Science TT positions. While I am studying neuroscience all of my work has been on AI, machine learning, modeling, image processing, ... etc. Just happens to be that my questions were coming from neuroscience. To @iamnarra I have worked hard on showing that I am truly interdisciplinary, making sure my CV covers both from the "skills" section to the "research".

This answer may or may not apply to German universities and this funding source.  In the USA, sometimes a firm or university will "hit the reset" button on a personnel search or other solicitation, purely for internal reasons.  Maybe someone higher up on the organization objected to their process or criteria and they had to restart the process.  Maybe there were internal organization changes about who is or is not involved in the interview/decision process.  Maybe the final decision-maker(s) changed.  Maybe it has to do with some quirk or change in accounting (e.g. which budget year applies).  And so on...
If I were you, I would resubmit your application unless you have been explicitly rejected.  The only downside is that they could say "no" (again).

Thanks @MrMeritology! They did have a terrible application portal when I first applied (they got each document as a separate email) and now they've installed a new one. So maybe the first round of applications was so disorganized they want everyone to apply again. But I didn't get an email encouraging me to reapply...

@iamnarra Yes, if their original portal screwed things up for some percentage of applicants, it would make sense for them to restart the process. Never underestimate the capacity of any administrative process to screw things up for any reason or no reason.  Treat absence of information as NO information.


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Is there anything I can do about a teacher who is rumored to be unreasonably severe and whose class I am about to take?
Background
Due to a change in schedule, I recently had to swap one course section (with a supposedly outstanding instructor) for another (with a different instructor).
Problem
Based on a number of reliable sources, I have come to learn that my new professor is an extremely unreasonable, unapproachable, and severe human being. Numerous people who have had the pleasure to attend his class all commonly reflect on the fact that he is 1) a poor teacher who makes his expectations unclear (and refuses to explain students' mistakes to them) and 2) insists that only 25% of the class will pass. It might be of benefit to mention that this is a required course.
If there is one thing that bothers me in a classroom setting, it is when teachers are vague about what they want from students whilst grading them harshly for things that they never explicitly stated. This is especially worrisome in this circumstance, where the quality of a piece of work is, to some extent, subjective. In addition, I am NOT one who merely seeks to pass classes. I work hard, and I expect my grades to reflect such. Admittedly, I am a very persistent, determined, and bold and I tend to become riled up when I feel like an injustice has been done.
Class starts on Monday, and I would like to know if there is anything that I can do to minimize my heartache. I have heard too many stories about student-professor drama and I wish to avoid it entirely.
Obviously, I can't do anything right now. But would it be okay to approach the prof after the first day of class? If yes, what should I say? If not, do I just bite my tongue and risk my GPA to suffer due to nothing save a teacher's poor attitude?
For those who will tell me to wait until class starts before thinking about any of this, I see no purpose as this instructor has a very long track record and I wish to strategize.

@NajibIdrissi Good point; I don't know. It is just frustrating to know that my grade will probably suffer because of a teacher and not my own merits. Maybe: "I realize that only few people will pass this course, but I can neither afford to spend another semester fulfilling such a basic prerequisite should I fail nor have my GPA suffer. Is there any way you could elaborate on your expectations for this class to make it easier for us meet your standards?"

I also wonder if it is possible just to wait a semester to take this course. Substitute it with a different course for a semester and hope that a different instructor is assigned for next semester.

@Vladhagen This course is a prerequisite for a number of other courses that I need to take to transfer. Waiting to take the class will keep me at this college for a semester longer than I wish to stay.

Is the grading for the two sections linked?

@JessicaB I'm afraid that I don't entirely understand your question. When I wrote that I swapped sections, I meant that I replaced a course with one teacher and time slot with the same class (same course number+material) with a different teacher and time slot.

Is the 25% passing rate a joke? I'm only asking because if it's true, something is very wrong.

@Clay07g It could be potentially true including drop-outs and withdrawals.  Although for a more basic class like Freshman Composition (which it sounds like is the case here), I would hope that even that would be an exaggeration.

@rainier Regarding your first comment, I would word it differently.  I (personally, although others may differ) would first try to go to the professor personally rather than speaking as a group (we, us).  I wouldn't necessarily bring this up first day either (see my answer below). But if you did come to the point where you felt that you needed to say something, I would not dwell on your own GPA or failing, but instead focus on what you can do.  E.g., [1/2]

...[2/2] "I'm a bit confused as to why I got a [Z] on my last paper.  Would you mind going over it with me?"  If the professor does not want to go over the paper, you can often ask specific questions: ("Would [this] be better than [this] in order to improve on [topic you got graded badly on]?")  Again, see my answer below.

Welcome to AC.SE. Please take a look at our [help]. I removed your references to the fact that you are an undergraduate student since some of our users do not like questions about undergraduates. I think this makes your question a little more general and a slightly better fit for our community.

(this is a comment because it doesn't answer how to deal with such a teacher, but instead mitigating the fallout) If there really is a 25% pass rate and totally unreasonable/unclear expectations, you can probably appeal your course grade to the department. A notoriously difficult professor at my school would regularly have ~5-10 Fs (out of ~80 students) changed to C/B-s by the dean.

Go meet your prof, at the first office hour opportunity. Introduce yourself, ask for clarifications on the syllabus. Be specific. Make sure they know who you are, and ask whom you should ask if things are unclear later on. (TA or the professor?) Also, don't believe everything you hear about "bad" teachers. The horror stories might be true, but consider your source pool likely includes a lot of B and C students. In 5 years of teaching, I can count the number of students who've shown up at office hours on my fingers, without going all binary with it.

Also, any instructor that insists on failing 75% of the class has clearly never heard of a normal distribution, and should probably be reprimanded. I can't imagine that happening at my institution.

@3Dave In my country, in the past, it was not so uncommon to have exams with fail rates around 70-90% (I did it too). My late professor of Electronics almost 30 years ago was so severe to be brought to the attention of the TV news. He also used to yell and insult students who gave wrong answers at the oral exams. But, believe me, I've learnt the topic quite well ;-) I'm pretty sure there are still around professors like that, especially in the humanities.

@MassimoOrtolano Ouch. What I learned from my professors, and what I apply in my class, is basically this: If 90% of the students get an A, the test was too easy. If 90% get an F, then I have not properly taught (or there was a frat party the night before). I use the students' performance as a gauge of where we are as a team. And, if a professor actually yelled at me, I'd have walked out of the class. Even as a student, I was an adult, and I expect the guy at the front of the room to act like one, as well. A recurring theme here is "mutual respect." Glad you passed, though!

It's extremely well-known that community college students in the U.S. enter mostly unprepared for college work, and have high rates of failure. Nationwide, about 60% fail remedial elementary algebra. At our multi-campus university, fail rates in remedial English are also around 60% (rising regularly in recent years). I find it quite likely that an entering student would misinterpret information like this being communicated to them.

@StrongBad I understand the point of the edit, but suggest it makes this question hard to answer effectively, as important  context has been removed

@ScottSeidman the CC part or the English part? If the answer really depends on it being CC, then I am not sure it is a good fit.

@StrongBad the first year student in an  intro course in the US part

@StrongBad: I think it's already been on hold to close twice, right?

Replace the term "teacher" with "manager" and "student" with "employee" and ... welcome to life.

Ever heard of Lev Landau? Between 1934 and 1961 only 43 candidates passed his course.

@DanielR.Collins Yes there is (regrettably) often a significant gap between the true level of preparation and the expected level of preparation, especially in minds of students.  It doesn’t explain everything but oftentimes students wake up to a reality they are not accustomed to.

@inéquation This is for acceptance at the Landau institute, not for a course.  Anyways I doubt any instructor can be compared with Landau nor any context can be compared with the one in which Landau could accept students.

@rainier I teach in two schools. In the first one, I'm considered the best teacher they ever had and in the second one, students considered me bad. I'm glad I left the second one, the administration pass all students even though they are way below the normal level (like 90% of grade 9 for example don't know what's a median). I had 10%-20% success rate at best. You can't judge a professor by other students' opinion, it doesn't work that way. Also, are you in the first semester? Did you have an entrance exam to the university?

@inéquation I agree that I should remain open-minded entering the class. The OP was edited and some info was removed, but, yes, I'm in my first semester, although I've been taking classes at the same college for over a year via dual-enrollment. Yes, there was an entrance exam.

@rainier If exactly the same course is being taught twice in the same semester, I would expect them to have the same assessment (homework, exam, etc). If one tutor is treating students extremely differently to the other, that seems to me like the basis for a line of argument about changing at least one of the two.

@JessicaB I guess you are not based in the US.

Important distinction: It doesn't say that only 25% of the class will pass, it says  "[the teacher] insists that only 25% of the class will pass". I don't know if it was here or somewhere else, but I once read another teacher criticizing that mindset by turning it around: He admits that it doesn't matter how good the students are, he will fail to educate 75% of his students.

@inéquation: In the U.S., community colleges are almost all open admissions; that is, no admissions requirements other than high school diploma. Students will take placement exams on entry (likely what OP means by "entrance exam"). Note that nationally open-admissions schools in the U.S. have about a 36% graduation rate (see link).

@R.Schmitz: N.B. the insists assertion is at least 3rd-hand (OP hasn't been in the class yet), so I would not depend on parsing that too finely. E.g., I could say that it is true that 80% of students testing into low-level math courses in the U.S. will not complete the sequence; students might express shock or disbelief; and I might insist that indeed, it is true. link

@DanielR.Collins Didn't know that. It's natural for a university without entrance exam to have low success rate, not the professors' mistake.

@DanielR.Collins In a conversation, I'd just say "a quarter", 25% seems like an exact number from a course description written by the teacher himself. I wouldn't call that 3rd party. Apart from that, there's a difference between parsing roughly and assuming this guy must be wrong because he's a student and every teacher must make wise decisions. Taking the question at face value is also part of the etiquette in all the other stacks I know. In those other stacks, if something isn't clear to you, that's exactly what these comments here are for. Are students second class citizens here?

@MorganRodgers ...which is the teacher's evaluation if the knowledge in question has been transferred - a process that I would call educating. Or, well, I'm beginning to see that I kinda stand alone here with that opinion, that it should be an evaluation of knowledge instead of an arbitrary percentage. Is the ridiculousness more obvious if I turn it around? "Good morning Mr. Rogers, I'll be you surgeon. Today we'll remove your... uhm I think it's called tue-more. I'm sorry, I don't really know all these things, but the other 75% of the class were worse than me!".

@MorganRodgers I think we mainly agree here, high standards would justify such numbers as a result at the end of the course. Its only the "I will only pass 25.00%" statement, before the course even started, that irritates me. The teachers goal, albeit unrealistic, should be 100%.

As a former college instructor myself, the number one thing that made me willing to work with students was a willingness on their part to form a mutual relationship of trust.
I was always much more willing and desirous to help a student out when they treated me respectfully and did not treat me like I was out to ruin their life.
Let me also add that it is always of benefit for the instructor to know who you are. This is especially true in a class that potentially could have 50+ students in it (like introductory English). Try to find a way to introduce yourself to the instructor by asking a meaningful and intelligent question after the first class. Even just introducing yourself can sometimes be of benefit.
In closing, may I also be generally blunt? College is an entirely different beast than high school. The standards are often much higher. The negative reviews of this teacher could be negative in part because he is handed a sloppy bunch of kids who just want an easy A. Not always is this the case, but it is sometimes the case.

Thank you for your insight and honesty. I will certainly introduce myself to him and make a conscious effort to remain respectful.

@rainier Also, sit as near to the front of the room as you can so the professor learns to recognize you, and pay attention in class.  Finally, take notes on paper and not with an electronic device.  You'll get better notes, and no one will wonder whether you're checking Instagram.

@BobBrown Noted! Always have, always will. Partially for the reasons you state, also partially because of nearsightedness :)

Related: I am FAR more likely to help a student out who is having difficulties with the course if they actively participate, make an effort to attend office hours - go at least once, early on, even if it's just to introduce yourself - and ask early on when things are not clear, rather than just complaining about a grade with no real substantive issue. I'll help anyone who asks, but generating a positive impression never hurt.

Pretty good answer, except that it assumes the OP’s sources are wrong about the professor being a (censored).

@WGroleau I do not assume it to be the case, I just say it "could be...sometimes the case" that students are inaccurate in their depictions of college instructors.

potentially could have 50+ students in it — It may be more difficult to become "known" in a class of 200.  Or a class of 1000.  But try anyway.

If you had told your students you aim for 75% to fail the class, then, well, you would have been out to ruin their lives (to the extent that failing a course does so); and that would have precluded a relationship of trust and respect. So, -1, I don't think this answer helps OP.

Let me suggest that you wait just a bit and form an opinion about the instructor based on your actual relationship rather than rumor. You might form the same opinion as that which you heard, but, on the other hand, he or she might be just the person you need for this.
Going in with preconceptions isn't doing anyone any good.
FWIW, I had a reputation as a very demanding teacher. However, almost all my students (any who wanted to actually work at it) did very well and I was both liked and respected by students. The few times I was attacked for my methods, other students actually came in to the conversation and talked the complainer down. I never had to do that myself.

Thanks for your insight, I agree and will remain open-minded until I can formulate my own opinion.

And, by the way, @Buffy, being demanding and having high standards is never an issue. I highly value teachers who will highly value their students. The issue is failing to communicate those demands and blatantly refusing to help students do better, even when they ask for it and are very obviously trying to succeed.

I once had a prof that everyone I knew described as "a total [butt]." When I actually took his class, I found that he was straight up the kindest and most respectful instructor I'd ever had. I once asked him to repeat the last 5 minutes of a lecture because I hadn't understood a thing--he simply blinked and then did so. I once came to him and griped that the (departmental) curriculum was dumb. He asked me how I'd change it and then spent an hour talking with me about the finer points of undergrad curricula. No idea where the reputation came from, but it was utterly nutterly butterly wrong.

+1 For the suggestion to delay judgement. However, to form a sound opinion, OP would need to wait several weeks before doing anything about anything.

As most of the answers are handling the case of the poor misunderstood professor assuming good faith I will take the case that the professor is in fact the bad apple.
Yes, they do exist and yes, they do exist in university, they are not just a school problem.
In this case it will be an uphill battle. Normally professors have a certain amount of trust and everything you charge against them will be first met with disbelief, even if they have a verifiable trace of serious teaching problems.
So the first action you must do is making a decision: Are you really ready to risk such a battle? Could you live with holding your tongue and holding out which is unfortunately often successful?
If you risk it, you need to have as much evidence as possible. Kindly ask if you can record the lesson on audio (I do not know how the situation in your country is, but in mine many hearing-impaired people used this for preparation at home). Find out the grading distribution of the former tests...it is a difference if someone says "Normally approximately 25% of the people pass the course" (and you see sth. like 32%, 19%, 10%, 42% and different distributions for other grades which is unsuspicious) or that the guy has exactly the same distributions for every year (!) which is a sure sign of academic misconduct.
If you failed the course you should at least try to contact the Dean afterwards to talk about it (and get evidence that you did it). I do not know the system works where are you educated, but it is important that you really try to exhaust the "normal" possibilities until you get serious.
ADDITION: Daniel R. Collins provided a link that more challenging courses (e.g. math) in community colleges (That the OP visits a community college was redacted in the question) have in fact a very low success rate which borders at the 20% level. So low pass-rates may be in fact not speaking against the professor.

How does this answer have such a low score?  Since I encountered two at the university (one evil, one simply incompetent) and heard of others I would think that plenty of people here would have encountered one.

@LorenPechtel academia.SE is full of professors and ends up with a rather understandable bias in favour of the teachers. Truly malicious teachers are a lot less common than (undergraduate) students often seem to claim, but they definitely do exist (sadly...)

@LorenPechtel agreed. I especially like the point made here about passing distribution over a span of years. If, over 10 years, he consistently only passes 25±1% of the class, red flag. If it's much more varied (even 3-5% variation would be less suspicious) across the years and just averages to 25%, that seems much more reasonable.

-1 because much of this is not actionable advice for the OP. (1) It seems to suggest taking and failing the course intentionally, then protesting after the fact. (2) Test grade distributions are usually not available. (3) Constant distributions are not necessarily academic misconduct, in fact, some departments mandate precisely that. (4) It overlooks the blatant fact that many U.S. community college intro courses have very low passing rates such as these.

@DanielR.Collins (1) Only after you mentioned it I saw that it can be misinterpreted, so I adjusted that. No, you should not fail intentionally. (2) I am quite sure that this information is out there because the university need to document their grading. If they won't give it out, use the student yearbook of the passing students and contact them. (3) Apart from its controversial usage I am not aware of a "grading on a curve" with a failure rate of 75%. I would rule that out. (4) Source? Can someone else support or contradict this fact?

I will repeat links I put in comments to the question. U.S. community colleges are almost all open admissions (no admissions requirements other than high school diploma); that link quotes graduation rate of about 36%. This link quotes 39%. This link at ends says those testing into lowest math courses succeed at less than 20% rate.

I would challenge one to find in-class test score distributions from an individual instructor released from a U.S. community college. Many factors go into the final grade for these courses. In some cases passing any given test is not even a requirement. The community college where I work does not have any such thing as a student yearbook (and I would say that plan would be very infeasible if there were one).

Edit: Last link should have been here. (National success rate under 20% if testing into lowest math courses in 2nd-to-last paragraph).

@DanielR.Collins I have included your information at the end that a very low passing rate may be completely ok.

@ThorstenS.: Thanks greatly for attending to that. I should point out that "more challenging courses" sounds like upper-level/advanced courses, when in fact the highest fail rates are in the lowest-level "remediation" courses (equivalent to 6th-grade arithmetic, 8th-grade algebra, and analogous language courses, for example).

If your professor legitimately gets to the end of the semester and gives 75% of the students a failing grade, this answer may not apply.  However, that figure strikes me (as clarified below) as a freshman tall tale or at worst a scare tactic.
I would encourage you to, first of all, do your homework (figuratively) and do know what the professor is known for.  Tough grader?  Lots of homework?  Easy A's? Doesn't cover the textbook in class? These things are good to know.
However, take that information with a grain of salt.  Every professor I've ever come across is pleased by a hard-working, honest, respectful student.  As Vladhagen noted, some professors will get bad reviews per se from students fresh out of High School that didn't read the syllabus and want the least amount of work for an easy A.  Although it's becoming more and more necessary for many professions to have a college degree, the real point of college is to come and learn, which is different from the "come and graduate" perspective of many High School students.
Harsh words/expectations
Sometimes a professor will say things like "only 25% of you will pass," to scare a group of students into working hard, when they don't actually mean it.  Sometimes they'll be speaking from experience, in a harder class where many people drop out (my Calc 1 teacher did, and he was an awesome guy).  Although I will say that, from my experience, 25% passing would have to include the people who drop out after realizing the class isn't for them.  25% at the end of the semester is very low.
Since your teacher seems to be known for unclear expectations, be especially careful in reading the syllabus at the beginning of the semester.  A lot of high school students neglect to do this, and then complain about unclear expectations.  In addition, if you have any questions, ask your professor.  Try to be specific, and make it easy to respond: instead of saying, "what's the best way to insert quotations?" ask, "would it be better for me to say 'blablahbla (Author),' or 'as Author says, 'blablahbla.'"
Lack of (useful) feedback
My hope would be that you would at least get some feedback on your homework when graded -- whether that be marking categories (style: 2.7, length:6.3), or written critiques on the paper.  It is possible that you'll have a professor that has one writing style that they like, and you'll need to cater to that for the class.  If that's the case, it's possible you won't know until your first paper comes back marked down.  In that situation, you'd use the critiques to understand what the professor does want from your papers, and improve on following ones.  It's rare that a single paper will hurt your grade too much.  Once you get that paper back, it doesn't hurt to go to the professor's office hours (nice to do anyway), and discuss how you could've made the paper better.  This particular talk wouldn't be a time to come in and ask them to change your grade; instead, it shows them that you want to do high quality work, and it's a chance for you to learn what they want.  Be respectful, as always, and come with specific questions (e.g., "Would [this] have been better?").
"Unreasonable, unapproachable, and severe."
Your professor seems to also have a reputation for being "unreasonable, unapproachable, and severe."  Now I don't suggest that you ignore this reputation, but don't let it mar any potential interactions you may have.  I don't know anyone that specifically wants to be any of these qualities, and I suspect that your professor does not either.  (That doesn't mean of course that I don't know people who come across as these things, but it's not because they're Scrooge or Mr Grinch inside.)
In other words, don't treat them as if they're being unreasonable, unapproachable, or severe right off the bat, because that will give them a bad impression of you.  Sometimes there will be professors that are tired of students coming up with questions that they already covered in class, and it will rub off into their interactions with other people as well.  For my introductory chemistry teacher, that was the case.  Her philosophy (as I could tell) was to be strict, and even make fun of people who asked questions in class if she'd already covered it, in hopes of people paying attention and not having to ask those questions.  Now, I'm not saying that's the best strategy, but from her perspective it seemed to work: she got fewer "dumb" questions.  (Side note: if you don't understand something, please just ask.  Respectfully, of course, but don't be intimidated by someone like this.  She didn't actually mind the questions (although I was scared to ask for the first month), and I actually liked her by the end of the semester :).)
Again, often the "unapproachable" reviews are from people who didn't try hard enough.  Yes, it reflects badly on the professor; they should try to foster useful discussion and questions.  However, often the "unapproachable" professor will be approachable with tact.  As I've said multiple times, be respectful, and do your homework.  In your standard Community College, those two things alone will already put you above the rest.
TL;DR:
(Since you can't change classes,) Give the professor the benefit of the doubt, do good work, ask questions, and be respectful.

"until your first paper comes back marked down" - this is incredibly optimistic. Often my papers didn't come back at all. Often (really).

If the failure rate in that professor's class is 75%, then there isn't much doubt that something is wrong.

@einpoklum We're acting as if the failure rate of 75% is sustained fact. It honestly sounds like a freshman horror story that turns out to be a tall tale.

@Vladhagen: Ok, so qualify your answer and prepend it by saying "I'm assuming that the Professor does not actually consistently fail most of his students" or something to that effect.

1. Verify (or dispel) the rumors
Some other answers have suggested this, but more vaguely. I'll be concrete:
1.1.  Talk to the student union / council, and your faculty representatives in particular. Read concrete complaints or correspondence regarding this Professor.
1.2 Determine the fail/pass rate when this Professor gives an exam (in general or just for this course). Is it really 25%, or below 50%, who pass?
1.3 Skim your university's and departments' regulations / bylaws - to understand what a Professor can and cannot do with respect to setting pass/fail rates and with respect to responding to student queries in and out of class.
1.4 Wait until your first session with him, at least. At the session, write down (or record as audio and transcribe) statements which you believe contradict the Professors official obligations, and cases in which he outright refused a legitimate request to clarify a point he was making.
If the rumors have been too harsh then ignore the rest of this answer (perhaps not the next section though.) Otherwise, read on.
2. Schedule an appointment with him
In almost (?) all universities, students taking a class are able to arrange to visit the instructor in his/her office, to ask for advice, clarifications, repeated explanation of a point made in class etc. In many universities, there is even an official weekly reception hour which the instructor is required to keep free of other engagements and at which s/he must be present in their office.
2.1 Visit the Professor's office hours, or schedule an appointment in his office, the first time you feel he was being unclear in his requirements or in his actual teaching.
2.2 At the appointment, focus on individual, specific, points of inclarity first of all. Also, tell him that you want to make an effort to succeed in this class (perhaps butter him up with an explanation of how you recognize the academic importance of this subject).
2.3 If the appointment hasn't otherwise gone poorly, and if he has made a statement regarding the 25%, tell him that the statement has made you very concerned, since you've understood it to mean that even if you apply yourself, pay attention, do the homework, etc. you will still probably fail. See how he reacts, or how he explains this policy.
If even the specific points you've brought up cannot be clarified or addressed, or if he doubles-down on how most students deserve to fail his class, then you're in real trouble. If he has assuaged your concerns, however, consider doing the following as well
2.3 Carefully suggest that from speaking to your friends, you believe that several other students may have failed to understand what you have come to try to clarify. Don't suggest any concrete action - let him suggest something, if at all.
3. If things turn sour, consult others before escalating
If the Professor actually is unclear, refuses to explain things, makes inspecific/unclear requirements, is unresponsive at reception hours, seems to plan to fail most students, etc. - you should do something about it; but - not alone.
3.1 Talk to fellow students taking the course about this and try to act together in anything else you do.
3.2 Talk to the student union about this issue, providing them with concrete evidence of wrongdoing / failures. Try to have them act together with you (but don't let them just drop the ball).
3.3 Talk to the teaching assistants and/or to other Professors - again at reception hour or in an appointment, explaining you find the Professor difficult to approach and you are worried you will have trouble completing the course despite making an effort. You would be asking their advice, ostensibly, but the subtext is that there's a problem with the Professor and you need their help in getting him to realize it. If the TAs not too defensive of him, "escalate" the subtext and actually try to get to the point of saying that. On the other hand - this is a bit risky; if you can do this in a group of people.
3.4 Talk to us again - You can very well ask a followup question here on Academia.SX

I would talk to the other professors.
During my masters, I was warned about a particular professor by other professors.  I did not heed their warning, and it was a terrible experience (e.g., I watched him insult and humiliate other students in the class).  When I later spoke to the problem professor's own colleagues in his own department, they also had very negative things to say about him.  I couldn't believe their candour  with me: a student, unknown to them.
There are some professors who should not be teaching.  For whatever reason, they hang around unwanted by everyone.  I suggest you find out from professors what kind of situation you're walking into.  If they have positive things to say about him, then try to get the most you can out of the class.  If this probably a bad situation, you should just avoid it.  You will have very little power to fix things if they go wrong.

Did they warn you to NOT take the class with that professor? Ouch. I have no choice but to take him this semester. I am also unsure as to how talking to other profs would be of any direct benefit, especially if I am already aware of his track record.

First of all, hello from another student who had a similar experience.
The currently most upvoted answers tend to give the benefit of the doubt to the teacher. As someone said in comments, Academia.SE is mostly made of teachers - and I shall add - good teachers. I don't know any of them, obviously, but I have absolutely no doubt that every teacher participating in Academia.SE is immensely above average and most certainly minimally decent teachers.
Indeed, evil teachers are almost inexistent, I believe. But everyone is overlooking that incompetent teachers are all over the place. Including teachers that think they are excellent but oversee their own absurdity. Also, it should be noted that there are many countries in the world, with many cultures and many problems. Not everyone studies in the best universities, with the best teachers.
Now, to the answer. I will make very pessimistic assumptions, so if in your case it's not that bad, great!
What you can do about the teacher
It's a good thing to fight for a fair an better class/environment. For this, I suggest @einpoklum's answer, which has detailed steps on what to attempt that I agree with.
What you can do about yourself
Assuming the unfortunate situation in which the above didn't work, I will provide some suggestions on what you can do about yourself, the main goal being to make your semester less painful to you (preventing you from going crazy) while still keeping in mind that you must pass.
Be ready for lower grades than usual
Accept that your grades will take a hit. If you're like me, and don't like to just get 60 and pass (instead, you want to learn everything which usually automatically leads to 90+), convince yourself that this is simply not doable when the evaluation system used by the teacher is unpredictable, random, illogical and unknown. You will still learn as much as you can, as always, but since grading is absurd, you won't be graded accordingly.
Obtain as much information as possible
Make super specific questions about his grading system in order to gain as much information as possible, in a way that makes it almost impossible for him to deny it later. Ask things like:

Professor, that report you mentioned, at what date exactly is it to be delivered? How many points is it worth? Is there a model to be followed? Must it be handwritten? Do you expect an specific formatting? Approximately what size do you expect?

Once I delivered a single-page text about a certain topic and got a bad grade. After asking why, he said that "it should have been separated in topics instead of paragraphs".
Pay attention
If he is bad at transmitting information, i.e., teaching, try your best to pay attention anyway so that you can at least figure out what is the topic of each lecture so that you can study by yourself later.
Show interest
Let him notice that you're interested in learning. There is a good chance that this will happen naturally since you're interested in learning since the beginning. In the end of a class, if you have a question, ask it, even if you don't expect to learn anything from his answer. As I said, chances are that he is simply incompetent, and not evil. This way, being friendly won't hurt and will probably be beneficial.
Don't show anger/impatience
Feel free to express confusion and show that you're looking for help, but do not show anger or impatience. Try at your best to consider that he is not doing what he is doing because he is evil.
Do it his way
If you manage to find out what he wants, do the things the way he wants. Even if it's a bad way. For example, if you find out that he likes reports divided in 4 chapters with certain specific titles, do that even if objectively there is a much better way to do it. Recall that since his grading is absurd, unfortunately you shouldn't do the best, but instead you should do what he believes to be the best (of course all of this is only doable if you figure out what's best for him in the first place).
Keep in mind that the teacher is a part of the challenge
Usually, if you're like me, the challenge is to "learn something", and the high grades simply come as a consequence. This time, there are two challenges. The first is to learn something, as usual. I'm sure you will do well on that. The second is to get good grades. Accept that, this time, they won't be correlated as usual. You'll have to make specific efforts for this second challenge. Keeping this in mind since the beginning will help you.

Despite some good advice - -1 for claiming "you can't do much" and suggesting no resistance even if it is merited.

@einpoklum Thanks for the comment. In fact, you're absolutely right. I will edit my answer.

@einpoklum I've edited my answer. Thanks for your feedback, that was indeed poorly written. Hopefully it's enough to revert your downvote. If not, let me know what else isn't good and I'll take a look :)

"Don't complain" -> "Don't complain to his face" (which I would still disagree with but would still not merit a downvote). Also, OP should not accept his/her grades taking a hit for arbitrary reason, such as a decision that 75% of students should not pass - and I'm keeping the -1 for now on that point.

@einpoklum I've made further edits, please take a look and let me know, thanks!

Good enough to not merit a -1 :-)

I always worry when I read such posts.  It implies the instructor is malicious, which is very very very rare.  Most of the times the outcome of the course is as described, but the students have an incorrect opinion of the instructor.
I have taught classes where the success rate is very low, and I know of colleagues who have taught classes where the success rate is extremely low.  Such classes are rare and this kind of situation usually happens because students are poorly prepared (most often through no fault of their own) for the material presented, poorly organized (i.e. they overload on courses, commit to too much off-campus work etc), simply expect the instructor to provide them with detailed instructions on how to memorize every solution rather than reason out from first principles or - to be frank - delusion on the part of students as to what constitutes hard work.
In the latter case, this is often due to a difference in academic culture: chemistry students taking a required physics course, or physics students required to take a chemistry course, or engineering students taking a math course, or math students taking a more applied topic.  The difference becomes evident when comparing performances between students of the home unit and students from a different unit.  In my experience instructors are well aware of such differences, and I have yet to met someone who sets out to be rude and unhelpful to students.
I would suggest you reach out to the instructor as soon as you are in trouble, as for specific complementary textbooks or resources, and be careful about time management.

Exactly. https://img.memecdn.com/problem-with-the-education-system_o_2688857.jpg

@inéquation I love it!

I respectfully disagree. It does not necessarily imply the instructor is malicious. Another possibility is that he/she is simply incredibly incompetent and unaware of his own absurdity. I had multiple of these teachers, unfortunately.

@PedroA Sir: I have yet to encounter truly incompetent instructors.  In N.A. at least, they get flushed out of the system rapidly, irrespective of their talents at other tasks.  If one is not doing well in a specific class, a simple reassignment in teaching duties usually solves the problem.  Finally, there is no reason to believe that less competent instructors would systematically have low success rates.  Unfortunately, students often claim that instructors are incompetent when in fact it's a matter of incompatibility in the teaching style of the instructor and study habits of the students.

@ZeroTheHero I see :) Well, you are lucky then. N.A. is lucky that they get flushed out rapidly then... In my country, incompetent instructors staying forever is not unheard of at all. Especially terrible instructors that are good researchers. Also, I agree that students often complain too much, but not always. I am coming to the conclusion that this is simply very different depending on the country.

@PedroA I know of a single case where an instructor was obviously not putting the work into his teaching duties for a specific class.  The department chair told him that he would make sure this instructor would be stuck with this class for the next 20 years unless performance improved; that did the trick.  It is not fun or of advantage to anyone, including the instructor, to do poorly in class. On the other hand, I know plenty of instructors who do the bare minimum and keep students happy by inflating (not deflating) marks.

Assuming this professor is in fact a bad apple taking this section of this course is gambling with your tuition and your GPA.  I'd consider the following points for the goal of minimizing your chance for heartache.

Attempt to transfer to another section of the class - depending on the specific academic calendar for your school this may still be possible
Drop this class and pick up another required course - depending on your program flexibility and prerequisites this may be trivial or quite difficult
Drop this class and take a less than full load - depending on your current progress in your program this may mess up your long run graduation plans or may be trivial
Give them a try but be aware of cut off dates for dropping classes with respect to finances and grades

Nothing out there says you have to gamble your GPA and tuition on this professor.  If they legitimately take pride in failing students it's a bad move to become one of their students.

The suggestion to evade a (supposed) social problem - affecting hundreds of people, if not more - is inappropriate. We should encourage students to act (wisely, moderately, without taking excessive risk perhaps) to address such issues. -1.

@einpoklum "Without taking excessive risk" is the key here.  It's not the student's responsibility to fix academia or take one for the team.  Given the price of education, taking a class that you have disproportionate risk of failing is a substantial financial risk.

Listen very carefully to instructions.
If something is unclear, ask politely and concisely after the class.
Find out what you need to get into that top 25%. Top 1%? From the professor, not from peers. They might play a competitive game on you.
Be very polite and humble. Acknowledge the professor's absolute authority and don't threaten him in any way.

Obviously something is wrong there (with the professor, with students, or with university?), but unless you are feeling absolutely heroic, tread lightly until you figure it out.

This is a good way to get good grades, but a bad habit for the rest of your life.

@NeilG How does that story go: dropouts become founders, D's become politicians, C's become CEOs, B's work for C's, and A's drive taxis.

Lol yeah exactly. I just find acknowledging the professor's "absolute authority" really distasteful.

(I came here in the course of searching for something to help me learn the Python computer language so I can set some "interesting" assignment to my class .. but thanks!)
There are some assumptions here:
1) The "reputation" of the instructor. From where? Fraternities? Alums of schools that graduated people regardless of accomplishment? I am yet to find a good source for "Teacher's Reputation" that actually makes sense. If your gasoline pump operator used that to measure how much gas you bought, you would have them arrested. So why are universities so bad at this fundamental metric? Their alums' record of success in being happy 20 years down the line would be good, but how can one get that?
2) The Teacher is a boss who sets out Expectations for grades rather than a Teacher of what one comes there to learn.
I know of a teacher whose grading was almost "bi-modal". A or F. Well, not quite, but he would indeed fail most of the class if they did not solve the problems on the test. Yes, that sometimes hit 75% or more. But never 100%, but only because a few WOULD get it right. Which is a very scary thought because of the nature of the field. Would you like to have your appendix taken out by a doctor who, well.. could get that right 53% of the time? 23.55% of the time?
3) "Communicate Expectations". That term is the real Red Flag about #rainier's initial post. Teachers are not supposed to be programming robots, we are supposed to be educating the minds of intelligent, thoughtful, enthusiastic humans. When you are given a set of notes to learn, (and yes, you are Expected to go find some old tests, let me tell you that), what part of that Expectation is unclear? Why should you expect reward for incomplete/sloppy work (not that many teachesr won't give you that)? Yes, I see that rainier says the subject is "subjective", and that does make it harder. Experience is the way out, dear rainier and the best way I know to get experience is to work hard at it. (As a Senior in grad school told me: Ya gotta sit in this chair until yore backside has the shape of the chair!) Would you understand the Expectations until you had learned enough to understand the questions? How can you understand the question if you haven't thought enough about the subject? Isn't that the real problem here?
As a teacher, my "Expectation" is that you solve 90 percent of the problem(s) set to you to get an A, 80% to get a B etc, and at least 55% to get a D. That should be evident to any student from the syllabus, which I do communicate, but if you are in college and don't yet know that, there is something a bit wrong with your college and high school and middle school. If the scheme is far different from that (like, Only One A or None At All Will Be Given, a system under which I have studied..), OK, you need to be informed. Usually the "Communicate Expectations" term means: "Did not write on the board the questions and the answers for the upcoming test so that I could copy them down, memorize them, get them on my "cheat sheet" and copy them down onto the test because that's all I had to do in my high school where the teachers were terrified of my parents".
How many bosses in any interesting profession "convey expectations" beyond a very general level, I wonder? If they have to tell their employees how to draw every line or type every key, then why hire them, over my graduates who will know how to do their own thinking, and figure out what is the best way to do what makes sense? Why pay for college grads at all? The best compliments I have heard are (from the employer): "We are thinking of retiring because your alum has taken over everything we do!"  NOT "your alum needs to be told EXACTLY what to do every day, every hour".
Oh, and by the way, if you haven't figured it out yet. I am a Very Bad Teacher. Most of the 5% to 10% of my class who, despite my very best efforts to wake them up, don't even drop the course, and manage to fail, would agree with that - and they do very loudly and shrilly on the Internet. I am "disorganized" though I put out a clear Syllabus before the semester begins, and do everything mostly better than any other teacher. The 50% (or so, it varies) who EARN their As in my classes are too busy to be sitting on the Internet commenting on the teacher, but in the past (xx >>10) years I have encountered many after they became productive alumni, and at least, they still grin at me. What they are thinking then is a different question :) (my own evil grin). What I DO know is how ANGRY they are when they graduate, seeing how in many classes, their own very hard work gets exactly the same degree certificate as the poor, sloppy and clueless work of others who hardly did any work, because the Instructor emphasized his/her own popularity at their expense of integrity.
They thank me for doing my job honestly.
Come to think of it, that is the *ONLY** Expectation that MY bosses have ever conveyed to me in all these decades (yeah, there have been a few slimy attempts to get me to change Fs to Ws, but always couched in weasel words best ignored):
"Ya gotta be OBJECTIVE! If you ever lose that, you have NOTHING!" Still rings in my ear. It was the lunchtime answer (the Boss nearly knocked his tray over as he snapped that) to my question as a rookie not-even-academic-faculty teacher: "The Major is not doing his homework, and wants me to give him a C and not bother him. He is heading for an F. Should I do anything about it?" The Boss then marched off, summoned The Major to his office .... and The Major did get a C, because he shaped up and did all his homework, including catching up on the ones he had skipped. Because I was Objective but also sympathetic. I was too terrified to be anything else. I still am.
I will die happy, though maybe poor, that I have given them all my best and excellent education that they paid and trusted me to give them, however little of that the administration may have passed on to me.
But no, I am not going to Convey My Expectations this semester beyond what I already did. I have other uses for the time, and I promised myself many years ago that I will not allow the flunkies to dominate my life, I would spend my time helping the interested, smart students who are 90% of those I am privileged to teach, as long as my health and Bosses will allow me.

This would be better if it was condensed down to a more focused answer rather than a piece of venting or narrative. That said, I agree with the spirit of several points you make

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text:
Accepting a reviewer position only if I'm not the sole reviewer
I have received a review request from a journal (in case it matters, it is the best journal in a certain field of mathematics).  The article has some material in which I can reasonably be considered an expert (because I myself have published something related in the same journal) whereas some other aspect of the article is beyond my comfort zone.
Therefore, I am thinking of responding to the request affirmatively under the provision that there is some other reviewer who can better review the latter aspect of the paper.  My question for this site is whether or not if this is a common and/or acceptable reply to a review request.
A related issue is that the Web editorial system is set up so that a comment to the editor is solicited only if a review request is declined.  I'm not sure if I want to decline the request solely to talk to the editor and cost the authors a few more weeks of administrative time.

I have never done a review where I was the sole reviewer, but I am not in mathematics. Is it common in mathematics to have only one reviewer to make such a request necessary?

@Sursula (reputable) journals won't want to have only one reviewer, but it sometimes happens that the editor can only find one suitable person who is willing to review. (Reviewing an article in mathematics is a lot of work relative to other areas, because of the difficulty of checking correctness.) Probably the prestige of the journal will affect how long they are willing to spend looking for a second reviewer.

Except at the very top journals, papers in mathematics are usually reviewed by only one person.

This situation happens from time to time in math, and my suggestion is email the editor to discuss this.  See also point 4 of https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/131593/19607

It's not very common, but does happen that a paper is reviewed by several referees where each only read one part of it. (I've been on the other end of it - being asked if I could review "at least part" of a certain particularly long paper.) It is definitely a reasonable offer on the part of the referee. I'm assuming that the there's an invite email signed by an editor; I would contact them by e-mail before clicking "accept" in the system.
That said, there's a case to accept the entire refereeing task without any provisions.

being an expert on half the content of the paper, you are as qualified a reader as it gets. If you cannot understand and check the validity of the second part, arguably the authors should rewrite it so it is understandable to you.
it may be very beneficial for you to learn in-depth new material that is directly connected to what you are doing. Some of us have an amazing self-discipline but for others having an external deadline helps :)

This request isn't common, sufficiently so that I've yet to see it after handling hundreds of reviews.
It is relatively common that referees says "I'm not an expert on X, but I'm an expert on Y, and ...". In this case most editors will look for an expert on X. If this involves inviting reviewers anew, then so be it - you gotta do what you gotta do. It's conceivable that reviewers say "I'm not an expert on X" while accepting the review request - if there's a box for such comments they might use that, otherwise they can just reply to the invitation email and reach someone who will know what to do. I don't recall seeing this happen, but it'd surely be appreciated, since it tells the editor to start looking for a reviewer who knows X now instead of after you submit your review.
What is most unusual about your request is that you are accepting on condition you are not the only reviewer, which makes it seem like you think you are in charge of the paper. You're not the editor, you don't make final decisions, and editors can accept/reject a paper which you recommend reject/accept for (see e.g. this question). But it's a common misconception, so something a long-time editor is unlikely to bat an eyelid at.
tl; dr:

No, it's not common.
Yes, it's acceptable.
Reply to the invitation email and tell them you lack expertise in X. Odds are they'll say "in that case, let's cancel" or "that's not a problem, review anyway". In the latter situation, you can expect that they will look for someone with expertise in X.

I don’t see how the condition makes it seem like the asker thinks they’re in charge of the paper. They’re simply saying that if the journal cannot or will not find a second reviewer (preferably one who knows about X, of course), then they will decline the request to act as reviewer. There’s no mention of any final decisions anywhere.

@JanusBahsJacquet I get the same impression as Allure. Second guessing the motivation for such an unusual request, the first reason that came to my mind is that the asker doesn't want to be held solely responsible if their review on parts where they are not an expert misled the editor's decision and thus potentially do injustice to the author of the paper. So, by "in charge", I see it as "I'm the only reviewer responsible for this paper's fate".

@justhalf That’s how I read the question as well – but that’s a far cry from thinking that you’re the editor or make the final decisions.

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Are you in pure mathematics?  I have both told an editor I can only referee a certain part of a paper in detail (who said fine), and also been requested by an editor to just review one part of a paper.

I don't understand. Full disclosure, I've reviewed 2 papers (I'm still a student). And I don't care if I'm the only person they ask to review, I care about if I can give valuable feedback to the paper.
If you don't feel like you can, then just tell the editor "Hey I know I can review some of this, but I'm not sure if I'd know about X Y Z". In fact, even just from personal experience: second paper I've reviewed, I basically reviewed their methods. I was the "methods" reviewer, if you will. Most of my focus commented on their implementation. The other two focused more on the substantive area of things, while additionally commenting on methods. So, it's not completely unheard of.
My point is, different reviewers will bring different strengths. Also, the managing editor will also have their feedback to give based on yours, so it won't (usually) just literally be you doing the reviewing. Either way, make your concerns known from jump.

I feel like the sentence "I care about if I can give valuable feedback to the paper" shows that you miss an important part of your role as a reviewer. You have to be able to judge the scientific value of the work. You might have valuable feedback without being able to make this judgement. In that case you should not review the paper. Whether being an expert on one part of the paper is enough to make this judgement or not will depend entirely on the paper.

I don't agree with you (that I'm missing the point, that is). To me, being able to give valuable feedback is predicated on you being able to judge the scientific quality of the manuscript. Of course, I do spellchecking and proofreading while reviewing, but to me, critically engaging with the science and its implications is of chief importance. Whenever I've agreed to review, I briefly looked at the manuscript and asked myself "Okay, is this something I should be commenting on, am I the right reviewer for this?" @Kvothe But overall, I agree with you.

I have done a similar thing myself a couple of times. No, it’s not common. Yes, it’s acceptable. However, I would (and did, when I was in this situation) phrase things differently, and specifically I would leave out the part where you set conditions to the editor for accepting the assignment - as others have commented, that’s overstepping your role and comes across as a bit entitled.
Instead, just state that you can only provide feedback pertaining to the part of the paper you have expertise on (and explain what that part is). The editor can determine whether that suits their needs. And you can trust that the editor can think of the idea of getting another reviewer without you making that specific suggestion (let alone phrasing it as a demand).

I see this as a common issue and have seen this with myself being Reviewer 1, Reviewer 2, as well as Editor

Reviewer 1 writes to Editor (following review request): I can review the paper but have never worked with Piffles and thus will not be able to comment on the applications concerning Piffles in section 3.

Editor replies: Thank you. Yes, that is fine, please do so and I will find another reviewer for this part.
[ The editor could say: No, thank you, I want you to review the whole paper, but they would be foolish to insist on this unless both parts are deeply interwoven, as they will need to find another willing reviewer. ]

Editor writes to prospective reviewer 2: I received this paper that proves an interesting result in Q-Theory. They apply this to a question on Piffles, which is an area that this ont well known within the Q-theory community. This argument is localized in section 3. I am asking you, being an expert on Piffles, whether you could comment on the validity of  and potential interest in this material in this section.

Reviewer 2 replies to Editor: I will do so, but restrict my review on section 3 and take the Q-theory statement (Theorem 17) as true.

As Reviewer 1 you will not know who reviewer 2 is, nor what they will do in detail. There is nothing formally written down concerning the restricted role, apart from the reply from the Editor.
Ultimately it is the Editor's responsibility to ensure that the paper is fully covered.

You could just tell them you're not expert for certain aspects and then leave the decision what to do about this to the editor. Normally they will find another reviewer, but they also may have enough personal expertise to assess the missing part themselves. Or your review for the part you know about turns out to be so bad that the other part can't save the paper anyway.
As an editor I am very keen on reviewers who acknowledge their limitations, but I wouldn't like a condition as you suggest, because I may not yet have another reviewer at the time point when you're asking for this, and not be able to guarantee that I'll find one in limited time. So my advice is: Just accept the task, say clearly what you are not expert for, and leave the further responsibility to the editor.
Re your other question: Can you maybe find a contact email address in the email that invited you to review? Do you know who the editor is and find their email on the web? If I remember correctly, I have always found a way to contact the editor/journal when I needed to, and declaring a lack of competence for a part of the paper is a good reason to do this.

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