Glossary

Registration and Bidding Terminology

Included here are definitions for many of the terms and abbreviations we use when communicating about bidding, registration, and other processes.  If you have additional terms you would like added to this page, please email the Law Registrar.  

1L, 2L, 3L - used to describe JD students who are in their first, second, or third year of the program.  Does not apply to the LLM programs.

1J, 2J, 3J - used to describe JDMBA students who are in their first, second, or third year of the program.  Does not apply to the LLM programs.

Add/Drop - also called Open Enrollment.  The period after bids have processed to enrollment when students can add and drop classes freely using CAESAR.  Waitlists are advanced during this time as students drop classes.  Summer term enrollment is done exclusively through open enrollment. 

Attributes - also called course tags, Attributes are how courses are designated for graduation requirements in CAESAR (Legal Ethics, Research Writing, etc.).  Course attributes may change from term to term, so the given attribute must be reflected on the course at the time of registration to be counted toward a graduation requirement.

Bidding System - Law's bidding system is essentially an auction that allows students to express their strength of class preference by allocating a number of points to bid on the class.  The bidding system fairly address the most popular classes where demand exceeds capacity.  This is how the Law School facilitates the first portion of class registration in all semesters/terms except Summer. 

Bid History - Clearing prices and waitlist sizes from previous semesters, organized by course and professor.  This information should be used as a guide for student decision-making, not as an absolute guarantee of what will occur in each semester.

Clearing Price - the actual cost of a class.  The clearing price is set by the lowest successful bid for a class.  Students who placed a bid for more than the clearing price receive back the excess points .  For instance, if a student bid 100 points and the clearing price ends up being 50 points, that student receives 50 points back.  The clearing price for any class that does not fill during a bidding round is 1 point.

Non-biddable courses - Courses that are available by permission or application and do not go through the bidding process.  These are instead manually enrolled by the Registrar’s Office (examples can be found here).  While students do not actively bid for these classes, a corresponding bid point amount is deducted for these enrollments. 

Last Chance - During the Last Chance Period, students can cancel GOOD/SIZE bids to recover bid points, but may no longer place new bids.  GOOD bids are processed to enrollment after the Last Chance Period has ended and waitlists are created from SIZE bids.  There is no Last Chance Period in the Spring semester, as there is no need to recover points.

Open Enrollment - also called Add/Drop.  The period after bids have processed to enrollment when students can add and drop classes freely using CAESAR.  Waitlists are advanced during this time as students drop classes.  Summer term enrollment is done exclusively through open enrollment. 

Round 1 / Round 2 - There are two discrete rounds of bidding in each of the Fall and Spring semesters (there is only one round for Winter Intersession). 

• During Round 1, you can place, edit, change, and delete bids.  Students receive results for their Round 1 bids after Round 1 has ended.  
• During Round 2, you can cancel GOOD/SIZE bids from Round 1 to recover bid points AND place, edit, change, and delete new bids.  Students receive results for their Round 2 bids after the round has ended.

Time Conflict - A time conflict occurs when classes meet at the same (e.g. a class that starts at 4pm meets at the same time as a class that ends at 4pm; two classes that meets from 2pm-4pm meet at the same time) or overlapping times (e.g. a class that meets from 2pm-4pm overlaps a class that meets from 3pm-5pm).  These examples are representative and not exhaustive of the various "same time" and "overlapping time" permutations that may exist in the schedule.  Time conflicted enrollment is not permitted at the law school.

Waitlist - when a class is full, students may be placed on the waitlist.  If students drop from the course, the waitlist will advance.  The person who is number one on the waitlist will be enrolled into the open seat.  During the first week of the term, if enrollment from the waitlist will create a cap, time, or other conflict, the Law Registrar will contact the student and offer a brief period for the student to resolve the conflict.  If the conflict is not resolved, the seat will be offered to the next person on the waitlist.  After the first week, if enrollment from the waitlist will create a conflict, the seat will be automatically given to the next person on the waitlist. 

During bidding, a waitlist position costs the number of points you bid on the class regardless of the clearing price.  If you do not cancel your waitlist position during bidding or last chance, you will be charged these points regardless of whether you are ultimately enrolled in the course.  Students cannot outbid someone who is on the waitlist.  Cancelling a waitlist bid and attempting to rebid the course in Round 2 will not secure a seat; this will instead result in a worse waitlist position.

During add/drop, students may add to a waitlist without being charged points.