Mills Legal Clinic Application and Matching Portal
Matching is a common process in academia, used for classes, clinics, summer programs, and other activities where students need to be matched with limited opportunities. Although the basic idea is simple, administering a matching process can be a complex and time-consuming task. Students may apply to multiple opportunities and rank their preferences, while faculty and instructors independently review applications and rank students for each opportunity. Administrators must coordinate these different rankings, manage enrollment limits and eligibility requirements, and ensure that the final assignments follow the matching rules.
The process can become even more complicated when circumstances change. Students may change their preferences, withdraw from a clinic at the last minute, or otherwise become unavailable after the initial matching process. Handling these changes requires repeated reviews and adjustments and can quickly become difficult to manage.
MLC Portal guides students through the application process, allowing them to apply to the clinics of their choice and rank the clinic-quarters to which they have applied. Once the student application period closes, the system opens the process to clinic faculty and instructors. They review the applications for their clinics and rank applicants for each clinic-quarter in order of enrollment priority. Instructors do not see the students’ rankings.
Once all instructor rankings are complete, the system automatically matches each student to the highest-ranked clinic-quarter for which the student is admitted. The system can also support changes after the initial matching, helping administrators manage withdrawals and other changes without having to repeat the entire matching process.