Spring Grades
DS hopes everyone got this:
"As most of you know, spring grades were suppose to be posted to
BearFacts over the weekend. There was a problem with the program. The
Law School did submit grades to the campus on time, the problem is at a
campus level. The campus is looking into what options are available.
At this time we do not have any information on when the grades will be
visible. We will keep you posted."
If there is one thing DS has learned at the law firm at which he's working this summer it is that if you don't deliver it is your fault. It does not actually have to be your fault. Maybe a partner kept you late at a meeting. Maybe your secretary was out that day. Maybe you had a summer associate event to go to that associates were giving you crap for not attending. It doesn't matter.
When you are assigned a task in a professional environment, it is your job to make sure the task is completed. You cannot hide behind others' mistakes. So the Berkeley campus had a problem. DS does not care. You're looking into options. Great. Get the students their grades. Now. DS is not applying for a clerkship, but if he were, this would give him serious pause in recommending Boalt to anyone.
Two months is too long. Maybe the campus would not have had this issue a month ago. Fix the problem now. Get us our grades. 0Ls should be aware this is the kind of ineptitude they are in for over the next three years.
"As most of you know, spring grades were suppose to be posted to
BearFacts over the weekend. There was a problem with the program. The
Law School did submit grades to the campus on time, the problem is at a
campus level. The campus is looking into what options are available.
At this time we do not have any information on when the grades will be
visible. We will keep you posted."
If there is one thing DS has learned at the law firm at which he's working this summer it is that if you don't deliver it is your fault. It does not actually have to be your fault. Maybe a partner kept you late at a meeting. Maybe your secretary was out that day. Maybe you had a summer associate event to go to that associates were giving you crap for not attending. It doesn't matter.
When you are assigned a task in a professional environment, it is your job to make sure the task is completed. You cannot hide behind others' mistakes. So the Berkeley campus had a problem. DS does not care. You're looking into options. Great. Get the students their grades. Now. DS is not applying for a clerkship, but if he were, this would give him serious pause in recommending Boalt to anyone.
Two months is too long. Maybe the campus would not have had this issue a month ago. Fix the problem now. Get us our grades. 0Ls should be aware this is the kind of ineptitude they are in for over the next three years.
Labels: Grades And Other Neurotic Bullshit, Kevin Smith, Technology Rants
posted by Disco Stu at 9:35 AM
59 Comments:
by the way...you cannot pick up a transcript from the registrar, either. i emailed to ask, and MK-J said that boalt cannot see our grades either. awesome.
the problem is not that the campus's system screwed up. the problem is that it took the registrar's office a month to do a little data entry. if they had done the data entry in the few days it should have taken them, a little delay from the campus system would not be a problem. thanks boalt!
Besides the fact that they screwed up, the first line of the email ("As most of you know, spring grades were suppose to be posted to BearFacts over the weekend")is bothering me too.
The exam memo said we'd get our grades on July 14. The BBB said July 15. How were "most of [us]" supposed to know that grades were supposed to be posted this past weekend? How can the Boalt administration not realize how stupid they look with all these different dates floating around?
And why can't they just manually input or email students their grades now? It will take, at most, one day to do that if they really tried.
Amen to all of the above.
I seem to remember the same problem w/ campus computers occurring last year...
Does this mess things up for people who are applying to transfer out of Boalt?
My firm wants an updated transcript and I'm the only summer who hasn't turned one in yet. I wonder if they think I'm hiding a bunch of sub-Ps?
Has anyone ever talked to Dean Ortiz or anyone else in admin regarding our concerns about this delay? I'm really curious as to why it takes the registrar so long to enter the grades. Is there some process of which we're not aware? Or is there simply no accountability?
12:03, i feel your pain. i am in the same boat. i just emailed my first firm to let them know. but, of course, it's my fault...
12:10, the process at boalt cannot be significantly different than the process employed at other schools and yet, somehow they manage to post grades in mid june.
12:23, that's what I thought. I guess it would make me feel better if there were some rationale, but I know better. Plus, it doesn't help when I call the registrar this morning (before the e-mail went out) to ask about grades, and they almost cheerfully told me that they had no idea when anything would be posted. Main campus registrar was slightly more helpful...they said possibly tomorrow. I'm not hopeful.
what is all the fuss about? I checked bear facts this morning before 9:30 and my grades are posted...
The majority of this problem seems to be the IT incompetence at both the campus and law school level, especially related to systems of administration, specifically SIS, http://sis.berkeley.edu. BearFacts and Tele-Bears are embarrassingly bad homebrewed creations made by a department at Berkeley. The security breaches due to the loss of the laptop with graudate applicants information is just another example of it.
Just go to http://sis.berkeley.edu/SIS/sys-dev/index.html . Look at the e-Berkeley systems, e-grades, which is the system at fault here, and the online graduate admissions system, which is what allowed one person to download all the information from graduate admissions onto one laptop, instead of using encrypted remote access.
Look at this: http://sis.berkeley.edu/SIS/environment/index.html.
"The major programming languages we use are: Java, IDMS/ADSO, C, C++, PL/SQL, COBOL, TSO, JCL, and Easytrieve."
Not only can they not agree on a single or a couple of languages to create a competent staff and easily interoperable set of systems, THEY ARE USING COBOL.
"The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offence" - Edsger Dijkstra
It's not even a real programming language; it's a joke and only exists today in ridiculously old and outdated legacy systems that need to be replaced in their entirety.
The whole SIS department needs to be fired and outsourced.
Finally then we could have a system so the professors just fill in Scantrons, which goes into the system, makes sure they fit with Boalt’s curves, and then posts the grades if they are valid. If the grades do not match the curve, it just needs to spit out a report explaining why and e-mail it to the professor. There really doesn’t need to be any human involvement except on exceptional delinquency by a professor.
you're crazy 12:35. i like you, but you're crazy
Does anyone here seriously think that potential students are hinging their Boalt/Not-Boalt decision on the comments of people on this blog about the supposed "incompetence" of the registrar?
I mean, think about that. Do you actually know someone, or can you even imagine someone, thinking "gee, I really like Boalt, but there are these rumors on this dude's blog about the registrar sucking and grades being delayed, so I think I'm going to go to Columbia, where the registrar is said to be top notch..."? I hope not, and if so, I say good riddance to them.
Look, I know the registrar's office aint perfect, but cut these folks a little slack. They work hard and are grossly underpaid. Despite this I have found most of the registrar employees friendly and helpful when I needed them. All you need to do is smile and be polite when you're talking to them.
Moreover, you should know that the registrar's office works reduced hours over the summer because they work very long hours at certain points during the year. It isn't because they're lazy, it's because of the budget. In fact, I'd suggest that most of the problems being discussed here are more related to limited budgets than they are to employee incompetence. Firing everyone in SIS is not going to solve any problems -- more money for information systems might.
The rhetoric on this post is making Boalt students look like a bunch of brats. If this kind of thing has any effect on admissions at all I think it is far more likely that prospective students will see this and think "gee, those Boalt students are whiny and self-important... I don't think I want to be there."
I want my grades just as much as the next person, but I'm not going to sweat it much because I'm pretty damn certain nothing is going to happen between now and the time that I get them that will make me say "Damn! That bad thing wouldn't have happened if only Boalt had gotten me my grades a few days sooner!"
Finally, Max, while I’m sure we’re all glad you’ve learned a little something about accountability this summer, please spare us your tedious moralizing -- I’m sure if you worked in the registrar’s office you wouldn’t be able to magically fix the main campus’s computer problems either.
Update to 2:04
My apologies -- where I said "Max... please spare us your moralizing..." I meant "DS".
"Despite this I have found most of the registrar employees friendly and helpful when I needed them. All you need to do is smile and be polite when you're talking to them."
This reminds me of the training I just received on how to act when confronted by a grizzly bear.
To 2:04/2:05--that's ridiculous. First, when, exactly, is the Registrar's office working "long hours"? In my time at Boalt, I have never seen them open before 10 or after 4. While they might be there before and after, a 9-5 job is not quite "long hours." Their main responsibilities seem to be 1) schedule classes and 2) make grades available. If anything, it is those two responsibilities that should be keeping them for those supposed "long hours," yet they still aren't delivering. Which brings us back to the initial point--it should not take a month to input grades. I like the Scantron suggestion, but even if it has to be done by a person, assume 1000 students at Boalt and that everyone takes 5 classes a semester. That's 5000 grades. Inputting 5000 alpha-numeric characters should not take someone working diligently more than a day or two and a week at the most. And there's another major problem: "working diligently." I agree with DS: if you set a deadline for yourself, you make yourself accountable. I'm sure MK-J is well aware of all the oh-so-sad stories 2:04/2:05 documented, and yet the deadline was set for Friday. Or Thursday. Or today/this weekend, apparently. That's a problem. Does anyone know when UCLA's grades were available? That school has the same budget issues Boalt does, and you don't hear about the gross incompetencies and inefficiencies there...
And I love Boalt. But I do think that administrative efficiency and effectiveness is something that prospective students have the right to care about. 0Ls haven't experienced all the great things about Boalt that make current students love it, and so if Boalt and another school are looking pretty similar, why shouldn't they/wouldn't they choose the school that can make grades available shortly after the professor submits them? It's apologists like 2:04/2:05 that allow the school to continue to wallow in its inefficiency by claiming money problems when it's really just red tape and laziness.
2:04 PM -
Why do you assume more money fixes things? There are off the shelf products easily available that do what SIS does and more for a lower price and without the high threat of security breaches associated with a patchwork of systems. They might cause a decent amount up front, but they are cheaper in the long wrong than having a salaried staff with benefits. If you think money is the problem, go write them a check.
Secondly, you can't divy up the problems with Boalt and say, well whining about this one thing looks stupid and you'd be stupid to care about it. It's a pattern of activity that pervades many aspects of student life at the law school. Saying you can't complain about something because it's a good thing overall is the same type of argument that Jingoists make about not criticizing aspects of the United States. It's pretending that you must either like it all or dislike it all, the falacy of the excluded middle. People can critcize something in part without saying something is bad in whole, otherwise there would be little chance of incremental progress.
And don't whine about how people work hard but are grossly underpaid. They arent' slaves, they can work where they want. If they choose to work for a salary, they take the burden of performing their responsibilities, regardless of their salaries. That is just as true of the Registrar as SIS or anyone else at Berkeley/Boalt.
Someone should forward this string to the Registrar and to Dean Edley. Armen? And yes, the same thing happened last year when they said the computers crashed. We live in a world of utter bureaucratic incompetence.
2:34 - You think they're not already reading it?
I thought I'd just add this gem, which I have copied from the BearFacts website:
"Grades are available about four weeks after the last day of final exams."
Oh, the hilarity of it all!
"And don't whine about how people work hard but are grossly underpaid. They arent' slaves, they can work where they want. If they choose to work for a salary, they take the burden of performing their responsibilities, regardless of their salaries. That is just as true of the Registrar as SIS or anyone else at Berkeley/Boalt."
AMEN!!! No one is begging them to work in the registrar’s office. If they can't or don't want to do the job, they should quit.
Boalt should hire undergrads to do the same work with less attitude. It is not like the work requires a BA or the self important attitude. I have always been nice to them, and yet they have such sour attitudes. Sometimes they even have the nerve to complain about their job to me while I am asking for help. Asking someone how they are shouldn’t be an invitation to tell me how you dislike doing your job, which involves helping me. It is unbelievable that Boalt pays people with no customer service skills, to do what is essentially a customer service job.
Clearly BHSA doesn't address these issues
If Edley wants to keep increasing tuition, then we should see at least some increase in the level of service that we're provided.
2:04 here...
I want to clarify the point of my earlier post. I do not think that the registrar is above rebuke, nor do I think it would be impossible to improve the performance of campus services generally without increasing budgets, that it is "stupid" to complain about these things, or anything of that sort. I also think it's perfectly fine to raise issues with campus services on this blog, but it really ought to be done in a more productive manner and without so much uninformed speculation and outright rudeness.
Calling the registrar inept, incompetent and lazy is not only a nasty way to treat our colleagues at Boalt, but it is also completely unjustified by what has happened today. The registrar has delivered the grades on time and they do not exert any special control or authority over the main campus information systems people. Unless you think the registrar is lying about the problem, I really don’t see how they are to blame for today’s delay. The various comments suggesting that “if only the registrar got this data entry done earlier, this wouldn’t have happened” seem to be based on pure speculation about what the registrar’s workforce is like right now, and what other demands are being put on their time.
My understanding is that raw scores were due to the registrar from professors on June 16, the registrar applies those raw scores to the various curves and sends lists of grades back to the professors, the professors then have the opportunity to resolve ties and move students around the margins based on class participation or other factors, after this is done the grades are sent back to the registrar for final processing. From the time the raw scores were due to the time the registrar finished the grades was three weeks, with the July 4th holiday in the middle. I don’t think that this is particularly unreasonable when diminished summer staffing, the need to give professors adequate time to turn around their adjustments, and the frustrations of getting professors to do anything on time are taken into account.
It is simply untrue that the registrar only takes care of the course schedule and grades. Their responsibilities cover a wide range of Boalt’s functions, including, managing all of the major rooms, processing lots of different paperwork, dealing with various entities in the outside world, handling inquiries from incoming students, and the like. Though you might not notice it, the registrar’s employees do work longer hours at certain points during the year (for instance, when all the new students show up in the fall) and the operating hours of the registrar’s office do not necessarily correspond to the working hours of the registrar’s employees. I have it on good authority that the registrar’s office is required, by budget constraints, to reduce its payroll during the summer. But, I haven’t personally verified this -- perhaps someone has more information?
While I agree that throwing more money at these problems will not automatically solve them, I think it would be obtuse to suggest that money has nothing to do with it. It’s probably true that the grading system would be improved by more sophisticated software and automation -- I’m all for it -- but such things cost money and there is simply precious little money to spare across the entire UC system. Is spending a little money here worth it? Maybe. But, I’m sure that there are many competing demands for information system resources, and without more knowledge about what those are I’m hard pressed to say that the grading system is a top priority.
Finally, a couple comments on some specific issues raised in earlier posts:
First, as everyone here knows labor issues are sensitive concerns UC wide and I certainly don’t claim to have all the answers, but there are some clear misconceptions in the comments on this post. I’m not sure I understand 2:25’s point that the employees in the registrar’s office “choose to work for a salary, they take the burden of performing their responsibilities, regardless of their salaries.” You seem to be referencing the fact that they don’t get paid overtime for time worked in excess of 40 hours per week. I have no idea if that is the case, but I can say that whether or not an employee is entitled to overtime compensation has nothing to do with whether or not they “choose to work for a salary” because, for most employers, state and federal law require overtime for certain employees, depending on their job duties. Those laws probably do not govern the employees in the registrar’s office for a variety of reasons, the most important of which is probably that their compensation is governed by a collective bargaining agreement. My understanding is that the clerical employees have been trying to negotiate a new CBA with the UC for some time, with little success and much bad faith on the part of the UC. It is undisputed that UC clerical employees are paid less than their counterparts in other private and public university systems around the country. Compensation has a direct effect on employee morale and retention -- two things that would presumably improve the perceived performance problems at Boalt.
Second, I don’t know what to say to 2:20’s comment that it is “apologists [like me] who allow the school to continue to wallow in it’s inefficiency.” I had no idea I was so influential around here! If I could only get the Dean to listen to me maybe I could derail the capital campaign as well. In any event I’m open to persuasion, but I haven’t seen any convincing evidence that Boalt employees are less efficient workers than other similar workers in other university systems or the private sector. Given the heated labor disputes in the UC system I suspect that worker efficiency studies have been done, and I don’t hear anyone parading about claims that UC workers are inefficient.
I’m sorry for the length of this post… I’m weak and couldn’t help myself.
3:43 - you are so obviously a Registrar employee.
3:43/2:04 here...
I am not a registrar employee, and do not know any of the registrar employees personally. I'm a putative 3L waiting for my grades like everyone else.
3:43, brevity is the soul of wit.
Oh, BHSA will address it, to be sure. They're feeling the pinch, too. The real question is whether they'll be heard.
We need to be willing to make these points outwardly, not quietly on a blog to each other.
But realistically, I still have more confidence in our Registrar than in the campus bureaucracy. I fully believe Kelleher-Jones' statement that they did their part and the rest is out of their power to change.
But Boalt should do them sooner. What's so difficult about Boalt grades that it must take twice (or more) as long as other law schools?
The "gem" about 4 weeks after exams - that applied to undergrads. Should we have our own set-up? Sure. But get a grip - it was clearly about undergrads.
I hate it, too - and I agree it doesn't look good. Mostly, though, it's just emotional... we all need to get a grip and take a breath.
My understanding is that grades were adjusted from the raw scores by June 16, which is more than a month after finals end. If the Registrar's Office didn't act like the Politboro, maybe we'd have some real information. The lack of transparency infects so much of student interaction with the administration. Should we just take their word for it that Tele-BEARS times are meted out randomly? If so, we have a seriously curious distribution of Cal undergrads in certain classes and non-Cal undergrads in the less popular ones.
2:25 Here, addressing 3:43.
Firstly, although others have intimated similar things, I haven't called the registrar inept, incompetent, or lazy. Most of my accusations were at SIS.
However, I would agree with the others that the 1 month delay in grade turnaround is inappropriate, even if it involves with dealing with professors. 99% of these problems can easily be solved with effective IT technology, as I previously described. And yes, I agree, there is an upfront cost of these things, but that can be mitigated by firing the employees afterwards. If they need to find a place for upfront costs, they can delay hiring a professor for one year.
Secondly, none of my coments were specifically relating to overtime, but rather stood for the simple principle that I stated: regardless of how they are compensated (i.e. overtime or not), they make a choice of what job they get, at hiring and on a continual basis by not quiting. Just like any other contractual relationship, you are supposed to fufill your responsibility whether or not you subjectively feel that your compensation is "unfair." I can't promise to clean your car for $10 and then just hose it off a little because I felt $15 was a more appropriate price. You expect me to use soap and mabye even polish it for $10 and, in all likelihood, there are people who were willing to do it for that price and taking the offer and then underperforming creates real harm from the oppertunity cost of not hiring those people. If the registrar's office or SIS employees feel that they are underpaid, in anyway, including overtime, they should evaluate that and either quit or stay and do their job fully. I don't particularly care if the UC is bargainning in "bad faith" or not, although I don't think the failure to accept unilateral offers is bad faith, because every individual employee has the choice to work for the UC or not. If UC employees are paid less than coutnerparts elsewhere, then either there is: local market effects; other, less tangible compensation for them that compensates for the lower salary; or the other employers are simply paying too much, as they could get the same for less.
Lastly, you are right that salary is one factor in employee morale and retention, and therefore efficiency (I don't care abut morale or retention apart from their effect on efficiency). However, more obvious cause for the lack of efficiency is the lack of accountability. Both the Registrar and SIS primarily effect students, but students have almost no ability to affect the Registrar and SIS. The only way that students can have an instrumental effect is by having it influence their attendance decision, which is the very thing you argue against. Even then, as there are so many other costs and things involved in choosing a school or choosing to continue to go there, the factor of the SIS / Registrar problably remains so small that almost not influence is put on them.
You want to simply give them the carrot to improve their performance, but guess what, carrots cost money. The stick is slightly cheaper. Since you seem to be so cost sensitive, why don't we please everyone, have student evaluations of employees and departments other than professors and have that make a tangible effect on their careers.
I heard from a friend that back in the old days before the Internet, profs at big bad Boalt used to have their grades posted one week after finals. So much for progress!
i think we all need to retract the claws and stop baring our fangs. it's the first year in 20 that all profs at boalt have submitted their grades to the registrar before grades were released. not on time, mind you, that our illustrious faculty submitted the grades,but at least by now they have them. they might have had a deadline but that doesn't mean your beloved professor obeyed it. boalt has a culture that allows profs to blow off the deadlines the registrar sets. anybody been a journal editor on a piece that a boalt prof wrote? last one i worked on, the prof regularly blew off deadlines by more than a month, and this is someone with administrative responsibilities. i'm a rising 3L and need my grades like everyone else for clerkships, but i really think that we all need to lighten up. and finally, one correction to something posted above: 2:20, the office of the registrar might not be open to you before 10 or after 4, but if you look in the window at 8 AM, they're all there, and often past 6. they have hours in which they deal with students and hours in which they don't. and they get crapped on by spoiled brat law students with entitlement complexes. so please folks, calm the hell down.
Entitlement complexes? I pay $25,000 for tuition and can't get my grades two months after exams? The 13 peer schools all seem to be able to do it. Why can't Boalt? You're misfiring at your fellow students. You should be addressing the shortcomings of the hidebound Boalt administration.
grades are up!
I was in the Registrar's office this morning and they were pretty darn civil to me (I had a few other things to take care of). You better believe that they were ticked off that grades were held up. They probably also anticipated that the student body would take a collective crap on them for someone else's fuckup. If we want to change things, we the students/the BHSA/your mom should talk to the faculty, since they have the clout to make the change. For goodness sake, just stop killing the messenger.
Bitches.
5:08: not mine. Is this happening person-by-person, or are you just an a-hole trying to incite everyone?
Well said 4:54! This blog is starting to remind me of my daughter’s first grade classroom.
I think 5:08 is an a-hole.
Note from a (recently-graduated) 3L from USF: I took a class there this semester and my grade was given to the USF registrar and posted along with the rest of my USF grades 2-3 weeks ago.
On the other hand, while our Registrar is pretty good, we also have a "Dean O" (Dean Ortega) who causes substantial problems for the student body and is universally disliked. Surprisingly, paying extra for a private school does not mean a better administration.
I did have to deal with the Registrar's office at Boalt several times to deal with my "consortium" credits. All four employees working at the time saw me, and ignored me. Finally one of them decided it was her responsibility and helped me. Typical low-paid civil servants - nobody wants to do work or take responsibility!
P.S. My father, who graduated from the Univ of Minnesota law school in 1980, received his first semester Contracts grade at the end of his 2L year. At least things have gotten a LITTLE better since then!
okay, i could be completely on the wrong track here, but don't the prof's have to calculate and turn in at least all of the 2L grades in order to determine and assign 3L grades before graduation? if this is the case, 2L grades could have been posted more than 4 weeks ago.
I'm glad that I graduated this spring because it is evident from the comments here that there are many more red hots than I'd previously suspected.
To all of those who are bitching at the registrar's office and SIS for not doing their jobs, how many of you have worked in a large bureaucracy? You all sound like such whiners. If the lack of your grades is handicapping you to such an extent, then band together and bitch to Dean Edley to do something about it; don't sit here and complain that people should be fired because they are too lazy or cannot do their jobs.
Yes, I agree with most of you that it's really annoying to have to wait this long but it's really not the end of the world people! Get a life! Just because you pay tuition doesn't mean that you are entitled to special benefits as a result.
There's a hell of lot more to life than whether or not you got an H in Con Law or Intro to IP or Civ Pro II.
I think people are pissed not because of a one-day delay that is likely main campus's fault, but because they've already had to wait so long (compared to other schools), and this is just one more bit of incompetence along the way - straw that broke the camel's back and all that. If this same thing happened in mid-June, people would be a lot more understanding.
Plus, this isn't the first semester this type of IT problem delayed grades by a day or more. I'd be a lot more tolerant of this excuse if I hadn't heard it before.
6:21 - THey don't compile 3L grades before graduation. That's why no one gets order of the queef at graduation. And, I may add, they barely certified us as graduates in time for us to take the Bar. We all got scary letters from the State Bar saying that we might not be able to take the Bar.
If you can't wait for your grades to be posted simply ask your professors. They all keep a record! When I went to Boalt I would get my grades about a month before everyone else did just because I would take the initiative to ask.
6:21--Pointing out that someone should do their job, does not a red hot make.
Other have mentioned to me that fellow summer and full-time associates from other schools are *laughing* at Boalties because we don't have our grades yet. This isn't a minor point because it wears down the credibility of Boalt in the eyes of students who attend other national law schools. Every little thing contributes to forming an impression, which - all else being equal - might make a difference when, say, choosing associates for an assignment.
Seriously, I think some of you need to get a grip. First, what kind of tools snicker down their noses at someone who hasn't gotten their grades yet. Second, why should they or anyone else care about your grades at this point? Sure, the Firm probably wants to look your grades before they make an offer - to make sure they didn't totally tank in the spring - but they aren't looking to see how things went before they assign you projects during the summer.
1) Interesting suggestion about requesting grades directly. Some professors prefer not to give out grades before they are released, because they would rather not respond to dozens of individuals requests. However, if, next semester, many students request their grades a few weeks before grades are finally posted, professors might be reminded that grade delay is a serious issue for their students - for the variety of reasons we've discussed, such as the next semester's course selection, transfer and other applications, clerkship planning, bar registration, outside scholarship eligibility, school reputation, alignment with ABA guidelines, and so forth.
2) The registrar's office is likely not responsible for determining the *scheduling* of grade release. The schedule was probably determined by a decision-making body (presumably composed mostly of deans and professors). It may not have been revisited for some time, so that it's still responding to factors no one remembers which are no longer relevant. (Of course, the Registar's Office could find out what their peer offices are doing and take leadership in suggesting how to improve on the task they are currently handling as managers, rather than leaders.)
8:16 pm - I wasn't referring to summer assignments but rather overall views of Boalt and how a series of small negative reports such as grade delays could subtly contribute to downgrading the abilities of its alumni in the minds of our work colleagues. This may be nearly imperceptible and may be unfair as you note, but is real nevertheless. Law remains a hierarchical profession where small differences (take US News) have major effects - Whether it should be is another matter.
People have better things to do than to laugh at Boalt because of the registrar. The only tragedy here is that you (we) are wasting your (our) lives on a ridiculous blog dedicated to complaining. That is definitely worth laughing at.
Even without the delays, the scheduled release date for grades (early/mid July) is far too late for those thinking of transferring out of Boalt. Most schools have a transfer deadline somewhere between July 1 and 15.
As for being competitive with the other T14 schools: all law schools give you the same pitch. I feel like it took me months of reading their materials, scouring message boards, talking to alumni, etc. to finally get a bead on any distinctions between them. So clear differences do stand out to form an impression.
If Boalt's late release of grades affects clerkships (or at least gives the students this impression) and all the students bitch about it and have a negative opinion of the administration, then that is going to stand out when you only hear from other schools' students how much easy it was for them to get a sweet clerkship.
Someone asked about UCLA, their grades come out as the professors turn them in, so it can be as soon as a week after exams. UCLA's registrar's office is SHOCKINGLY AWESOME. They are super friendly and totally on top of everything. They are just smiling, happy people, and it infects everything they do, adding to the generally positive environment there.
The real question for those 3Ls hoping to clerk and get their applications in early is WHEN ARE WE GOING TO GET OUR RANKS??? I'm guessing somewhere around two weeks from now, or right in the middle of the bar exam. Meaning the earliest we can really send our applications out will be August, or essentially too late to get any sort of advantage from applying early, thereby squandering an opportunity available to virtually every other graduate in the country. It's okay, not bitter. Didn't want to clerk for a feeder, anyway. Certainly not Kozinski, Kleinfeld, or O'Scannlain, who have already hired or will by that time. No, it's cool. Not a priority for Boalt.
Also, did you guys catch what the judge said in his article about how competent schools not only assemble people's clerkship applications for them (unlike Boalt, which makes us print out all our materials and stuff and label the envelopes ourselves, and then STILL CHARGES us (most schools do the prep work and mailing for free)) so that the letters of recommendation are right there in the packet and not stuffed into separate envelopes that have to be individually opened. Makes sense. If people want to hire a Boalt grad, if they want to know what our recommenders said, they should have to work for it. We don't want to make it easy for them, then they wouldn't appreciate it as much when it was all over.
Not only that, but most schools also include a letter about the school and a little pamphlet about all the professors. Wow. We're really just coasting on our reputation at this point, aren't we? I mean, we're not even trying anymore. Much of our past success owed to our ability to attract the very best students by charging them next to nothing to come to a world class law school. Now we're decades behind the times, pay our professors less, and have a dilapidated plant but charge close to market with plans for further increases. But I'm sure that $100 million Edley brings in will make all the difference. Oh, wait, every other law school in the country has a hundred year head start on institutionalized fundraising and much larger standing endowments. That's cool, I think people will still come because, you know, we're really liberal, unlike two of the other top fourteen schools...
Bravo, 11:29 PM! The Development OFfice should attend to this thoughtful critique. Perhaps the Development Office, in their quest to make us future donors, can encourage Dean Ortiz and professors who make school policy to modernize the grading, rank reporting, and clerkship application packaging. Remember - it's not just money - it's attitude! UCLA gets less money from the state than we do, but it has far more professional services, based on your report.
I'm not sure things are so dire, 11:29. What's Edley supposed to do, throw up his hands and say, We can't compete? Boalt's made progress in expanding the faculty. Some of the tuition increases have gone for that purpose, which is probably necessary to maintain the school's academic quality. Edley also knows the building sucks, and he's trying to fix it with the new building and the renovations. He also helped us get wireless the summer before our 1L year. If we let him know the great frustration that we students have about the grades, clerking and registration issues, I'd bet he would try to improve them. On the clerkship front, was anyone else surprised at the puny list sent by the CDO of recent graduates who clerked/are clerking? Unless CDO missed people, only a handful of 3Ls are going to find spots.
I think all the complaining circles around the apparent lack of effort Boalt puts into its students. This has little to do with money. As the previous poster mentioned, the article circulated by the CDO on clerkships mentions that schools can take pretty inexpensive little steps to promote its students to judges.
And this grade thing has nothing to do with budgets - it rankles people because it seems like the administration doesn't really care or try to meet the standards set by other schools. Maybe it's the professors' faults in part, but how does the school have no standards to enforce its deadlines? Last semester, the sign saying Shelanski hadn't turned in grades was up until mid-March, 3 months after the semester ended. I know he and other professors are busy, but come on. THey're not law firm busy. And the administration does nothing apparently to light a fire under tardy professors' asses.
BTW - I mentioned this very nicely to Dean O. and she got huffy about it. So I don't think direct individual comments really do a whole lot.
From a clerking alum:
1. Chill out. No one is "laughing" at you for not having (one semester of) grades, and it will not make a bit of difference in the clerkship process.
2. The CDO list leaves off about 1/3 to 1/2 of the people who clerk. I do not know why they can't get it together to put together a comprehensive list, as every single other top 10-ish school does. (Compare Michigan's info to ours.) If you want to make a meaningful difference in the clerkship success of Boalties, that's one thing you could nag them about (as opposed to neurotically fretting about grades).
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