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Breaking UCB News: "Random" = Linear

By Patrick

Initially I thought I would need a couple hundred responses to confidently confirm or dis-confirm the TeleBears rumors.

But after about 90, the picture is clear. Painfully clear.

Excel spreadsheet with all data (IP addressed deleted)
PDF of registration dates by law class
PDF of registration dates by undergraduate application
Link to the survey. (Helpful for interpreting the spreadsheet.)

The two PDFs include data from both 2009 and 2010, so they're a little jumbled. But the Excel document tells the whole story. It's true that there were some outliers (I'm sorry, but I remain politely skeptical that anyone has an appointment time between midnight and two AM) but oddballs notwithstanding, neither I nor the spreadsheet have any big surprises to share.

TeleBears Times are Allocated First by Class:

--The class of 2009 will register on the 23/24th
--The class of 2010 will register on the 24/25th

That shouldn't rub many of you the wrong way. A large percentage of you were comfortable allocating times by credits anyway.

What you will not like is this: whether, say, a particular rising 2L's registration day is the 23rd or 24th is not random. And it almost certainly never was. In fact, it is so glaringly un-random that I am flabbergasted anyone who actually knows could try to claim otherwise. I don't know who has been lying to DO, but I hope she stops by to kick their ass before she heads to Irvine. Here is the the breakout:

TeleBears Days Within Each Class:

Students who applied to UC Berkeley for their undergraduate studies have identification numbers substantially lower than those of us who did not. Even if a person was not accepted here for undergraduate work, their current student identification numbers are in the 1500xxxx range, compared to the 1990xxxx range from the class of 2010. On reasonable explanation is that denials of undergraduate admission created a record, which was re-activated by the law school application. (Another reasonable explanation is that there is a God, and He hates the rest of us. They're equally plausible.)

These lower numbers in turn correlate to earlier registration days -- people with identification numbers in the 1500xxxx range register on the first day of their class. People in the 1990xxxx range do not.

TeleBears Times Within Each Class:

Within each class, Telebears times correlate lock step to student ID numbers. The higher your number, the later your registration time. Every time. End of story.

But . . . . you knew that all along, didn't you?

Like most of you, I'm irritated.

My ability to experience a class with any of Boalt's celebrity professors is hamstrung by an arbitrary decision I made (or rather, didn't make) in 2000, when I began my college journey--namely, the decision to submit an application to Berkeley. Eight years later, CP II with B*ndy? Forget it. Evidence with Sw*ft? Yeah, right. Crim Pro with M*rphy? Nope.

I don't know if there is anything I can do about this right now, except to give a big shout out to the pointy-headed bureaucrats who have been collectively screwing an arbitrarily defined subset of Boalties for God only knows how long.

So, Pointy-Headed Bureaucrats: I don't appreciate you right now. Which, in case you missed it, is a polite way of saying something else entirely.

*sigh*

Maybe those of us at the tail end can can make a "Mod 13" or something. Since we'll be in the same classes for the next couple years, and all.

We can iron out the details this September . . . in Janitor Law.

Full post as published by Nuts & Boalts on April 16, 2008 (boomark / email).