When I die, I want Cognomos to lower me into the ground so it can let me down one last time.
Several responses echoed a message that students have been trying to get across to the Faculty for some time now: the theory behind Cognomos may have received high honours, but in practice it’s a low pass at best.
“Unpopular opinion but I like Cognomos. As a school community, it gives us something to be universally dissatisfied with and that mutual experience builds community.” – Anonymous Survey Respondent
Another year, another Cognomos article
I know that I don’t need to explain what Cognomos is to all of the upper-years who have experienced it. To the 1Ls who haven’t yet gotten the scoop, you shouldn’t bother to worry about Cognomos yet. The first few weeks of law school are already a lot and they are counting on you to not become jaded and angry quite yet, so maybe save this read for at least mid-October. If that ship has already sailed, feel free to read on.
Cognomos is the utilitarian software that the Faculty uses to distribute upper year courses. Hopeful students sort their preferred–and not so preferred–courses into the categories “Great”, “Good” and “Acceptable” and Cognomos’ algorithm (allegedly) creates schedules that maximize students’ individual happiness. Students must rank double the amount of required credits because Cognomos needs a lot to work with for its process of determining demand for each class and spending students’ “virtual budgets” to provide them the best schedules they can “afford”. Apparently, Cognomos has also been used for matching kidney donations and medical residencies. Although this does make law school course selection seem comparatively low stakes, a lot of us are going into significant debt to attend U of T Law and want to get the most bang for our buck, which includes getting into (at least most of) the classes we want.
If you want to follow the evolution of Cognomos articles, they seem to have become an annual UV feature at this point. Previous authors have aptly described Cognomos as “a shit hole” and past student surveys found the process was difficult and stressful for many. It feels safe to say that Cognomos remains mostly a shit hole, which I will expand on as we go. I understand that there are likely a decent number of students who had positive experiences. It seems to be an unspoken rule not to brag about getting all of the courses you wanted. Unsurprisingly, not getting into the courses that would have been most relevant to your future career can be a bit of a sore spot. People are generally more likely to give feedback when it’s negative, so I am aware that this article might be missing the perspectives of those few lucky souls who snagged spots in the most coveted courses. And really, thank you folks for not wanting to make the rest of us feel even shittier than we already do. Now, let’s get into what you’re really here for: the complaining.
General feelings
33 students rated their satisfaction with this year’s course selection process. With 1/5 being extremely dissatisfied and 5/5 being extremely satisfied, no respondents gave a 5/5:
Given that Cognomos is supposed to maximize aggregate happiness, the lack of individual 5/5 ratings may just be an indication that Cognomos is working properly. Still, the faculty shouldn’t just accept that every year, the course allocation process is going to let down a significant number of students, especially when those students are paying the equivalent of many people’s yearly salaries in tuition. Students will inevitably get frustrated when they drop a pretty penny at this school, only to feel like they have little say in course selection. One 3L student opined, “I pay nearly $40,000 per year in tuition to this school and do not even have the chance to choose my own classes.” Although the most salient effects of course selection will be on students’ future careers, it should be remembered that enrollment also impacts eligibility for moots and things like travel and exchange plans. One 2L student explained that they will not be able to participate in the Laskin Moot because they were not placed in a first semester section of Administrative Law. Another worried their exchange plans may be in jeopardy due to not getting into Legal Ethics or a course that satisfies the Legal Process graduation requirement.
Several responses echoed a message that students have been trying to get across to the Faculty for some time now: the theory behind Cognomos may have received high honours, but in practice it’s a low pass at best. As a 2L respondent summarized: “I know the system is based on a Nobel Prize-winning theory, but that’s absolutely useless. We’re not an economics simulation. We’re a student body that wants to take the classes that we are paying a mint for.” Students seem to generally recognize that the Faculty trying to make course selection fair and equal is a good thing, but doesn’t there have to be some better way? Carson Cook (3L) identified several issues with continuing to use Cognomos: “It makes no sense to have a selection system that requires manual updates to reflect in Quercus and ACORN, waiting on the Registrar to sync it is bad for everyone and has resulted in issues, though this could require a significant software project by U of T. Cognomos also has an overly utilitarian approach. While the ranking algorithm itself might be useful, the lack of feeling agency in understanding how courses are selected is harmful.”
Civil Procedure: The course that got away
Just over half of the survey respondents reported that they were placed into their top ranked course. While it’s at least the majority, this number still isn’t great for a school that takes great care to uphold its reputation as the best of the best. There simply shouldn’t be such a significant portion of students who don’t get to take their top class, especially considering the ramifications this can have as they go on to articling and eventually practicing. Self-studying for the LSAT might have been fine, but teaching yourself the contents of a substantive course is very different.
The most common missed connection for survey respondents was, once again, Civil Procedure, affectionately (or not so affectionately) known as Civ Pro. This academic year, there is only one section of Civ Pro running in the Spring semester, with the instructor TBA. Demand for Civ Pro is high because many U of T Law students want to pursue civil litigation. Several expressed worries about the effect not taking Civ Pro may have on their careers. Olivia Schenk (3L) commented: “I did not get into Civil Procedure despite it being my highest rated course. I’m going into civil litigation on Bay Street and I’m very frustrated to not be able to get into this, once mandatory, rudimentary course.” Another 3L respondent explained that they ranked Civ Pro first because their employer requires it. They did not get in and, to make matters worse, were not even placed on the waitlist. It is understandable that there may be issues with finding teachers for Civ Pro, but leaving so many students out of the core class for the area in which they plan to practice is concerning nonetheless.
In the words of Taylor Swift, I think there’s been a glitch
Modern ‘solutions’ bring modern problems, and there sure were a lot of them with Cognomos this year. Referring to Cognomos as modern may actually be disingenuous considering that its calendar is stuck in 1999, the year I was born. If you want to view, for example, only your fall schedule, you’d better make sure you’ve blocked off at least a half an hour, because you have to manually click through every single month until you reach 2024. Hopefully, most of you gave up before clicking 300 times. Though unclear whether they were willing to click through every single month since September 1999, one 2L student did demonstrate extreme perseverance in another notable way: “I had to input and rank my courses seven times before it would save, which took me over three hours from start to finish.” In that amount of time, they probably could have thought up a better course match system than Cognomos (the bar is low).
Students experienced other basic tech issues like Cognomos not loading or being unable to login, either overall or on other devices. One 2L respondent was receiving an “internal service error” message for several days. When the error message continued on the day of second round allocation, the student reached out to Assistant Dean Faherty, who told them it often works if you click the Cognomos link on the school website instead of the one emailed to students by the administration. Very high tech!
As one respondent accurately reported, “The first round of allocations was such a mess.” Students were provided schedules that were bare, with some not getting any credits in a particular semester. While a semester off sounds great, being given no credits at the first round and knowing you need at least 13 is probably not a great feeling. Students also recounted frustrations with how flag-happy Cognomos was this year. The software kept everyone on their toes by flagging classes even though they had no conflicts, making planning courses even more difficult than it already is. It seemingly could not tell fall and winter schedules apart, as classes that ran at the same times but in separate semesters were being flagged. One student even responded that all of their waitlisted courses were flagged.
Keep in mind that these issues occurred after the first allocation was delayed almost a week. One can only wonder what hell would have broken loose if it ran when initially scheduled…
The role of the administration
Ratings for how the administration handled this year’s course selection process were a bit less harsh:
Many respondents expressed sympathy for email inboxes and acknowledged how annoying “a group of high-strung, eager-to-email upper-year law students” could be. This sentiment is very nice, but are we forgetting that the administration is to blame for our use of this system in the first place? Yes, I guess the technical glitches were not fully within their control, but the choice to continue utilizing a software that has let students down over and over again is within their prerogative.
And don’t be misled—many students did feel the administration could have done a much better job. A 3L respondent recounted experiencing issues with their externship credits and not receiving any assistance: “Cognomos lists my Externship credits incorrectly– it’s a full year course (3 credits each semester) but it shows as 6 credits in each semester. Initially that made it difficult to track my credits in each semester, but I’ve since adjusted. I also got flagged in an email for being over/under enrolled and told to fix it before the add/drop deadline? But my credits are correct– I emailed to get clarity and no one has responded. The add/drop deadline is an hour away as I type this.” Another 3L who was not placed in their graduation requirements or on the waitlists despite ranking them highly (a common predicament) said administration told them to “just join the waitlist again.” Other respondents voiced concerns about the fact that Assistant Dean Faherty did not reach out as soon as login and course conflict issues were identified and that the administration seemed apathetic at times: “The administration seems to think Cognomos issues will resolve themselves, and refuses to take any responsibility or any steps to resolve issues arising from Cognomos.”
Better alternatives to Cognomos
According to most survey respondents, Cognomos is not working properly and the Faculty should not continue using it. I mean, we all know this and we say it every year. In the past, we’ve offered serious suggestions for how to improve Cognomos and these aren’t too difficult for students who have used the platform to come up with. But, I also don’t think it’s UV’s job–or the job of students paying exorbitant amounts of tuition–to do the administration’s work for them. So, instead, I have some very serious suggestions that would still probably achieve better results than what we have now.
- Hire a Course Allocation Consultant
Since coming to law school, I have learned what a “Consultant” is (or, at least, I think I have?). I can’t imagine Cognomos is cheap to use, so I’m sure that if the administration gave that subscription up, we’d be totally happy with the money going towards a twenty-something Ivey grad making PowerPoints or doing…whatever else it is consultants do.
- Set up a large-scale scavenger hunt for course spots
I’m thinking of a The Amazing Race style hunt–hiding ‘clues’ all around the U of T campus. Once you get a clue, you open it up and can choose whether you want the class inside of it. Perhaps some sort of bartering system would then emerge. Obviously, popular courses like Shaffer’s Evidence and Civ Pro will be hidden up in the trees and in Lower Bay Station and such.
- Let the squirrels who live on Philosopher’s Walk decide
This one is pretty self-explanatory. These creatures spend so much time around the law school, they have to have absorbed a thing or two by now. At this point, I’d rather put my fate in their paws than in the hands of the Cognomos overlords.