I received this strange email from OGA today and who can give me a reasonable explanation? How can it happened?My reply email is at the bottom.
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From: Office of Graduate Affairs [mailto:GraduateAffairs@juris.law.nyu.edu]
Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2007 4:22 AM
To: Office of Graduate Affairs
Subject: Introduction to Western Law


Dear Student,

Due to the high number of responses from students wishing to enroll in Introduction to Western Law, we conducted an internal lottery to randomly select 50 students to participate in the course. An email notifying students of this result was sent on May 18. Unfortunately you were not selected and are not permitted to enroll. Please drop this course from your schedule in order to accommodate the students who were selected through the lottery, http://www.law.nyu.edu/depts/acservices/registration/lottery/dropadd.html.


Thank you.

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Office of Graduate Affairs
Hauser Global Law School Program
New York University School of Law
245 Sullivan Street, Suite 472
New York, NY 10012-1301
T: +1 212 998 6015
F: +1 212 995 4656
GraduateAffairs@juris.law.nyu.edu www.nyulawglobal.org/graduateaffairs/
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My reply:

Dear Officers of OGA,

Thanks for your notification. I was very surprised when I saw the email below.

First of all, it is the first time I get to know that there was an internal lottery on this course in May 2007 as you mentioned. Before such lottery, I never received any notice or information from you in this regard, for example, what's the procedures and method of such lottery? how many students anticipated such lottery? and why did you conduct such an internal lottery instead of using the Albert lottery system?

Second, when you sent out the result on May 18 (as you mentioned), I even did not decide whether I would choose such course because the lottery deadline is middle of June. I believe many other LL.M. students also did not make their decision when you did so. Without such decision, how did you arrange the lottery? If you excluded the students who had not made decision at that time, you deprived such students of choosing right without prior notice (just like me); On the other hand, if you included all LL.M. students as your lottery candidates, you were still wrong because it is an optional course and you cannot choose students to take this course disregarding his intent. If you choose a student who does not want to take this course (by such internal lottery including all students) but refuse other students who may really want to take this course (just like me), it is unfair and unreasonable.

Third, I have read the email below for several time but still cannot understand why you decided to conduct such an internal lottery. Even if there is too many people who want to take this course, you can still use Albert lottery system to randomly select students. What you need to do is to control the amounts of lottery results (selected students). I am totally confused.

At last, I have arranged the flight (August 8) and accommodation based on the lottery result. If I accept to drop this course as you mentioned, how about my losses? I did not do anything wrong but have to bear the related damages. There seems no reason to do so.

NYU is my dream school and I expect to enjoy my program in this fantastic university. Could you provide me a detailed explanation before I drop this course as you requested? Thanks a lot and waiting for your prompt response.

Best regards,

William Liu