help for my ucas application! esp. reference

[RillaBlythe]

I am trying to put in an application for midwifery by the January deadline. I emailed my MA tutor to ask her to be my reference, but she hasn't got back to me. She is extremely flakey - she has failed to respond to reference request for volunteer things before now - so I was half expecting her not to reply, but now I need to find an alternative. Because of various circumstances, there is nobody else I could contact personally from my MA who would remember me or have anything to say about me. My transcript is very mixed, marks from 50 to 70, because of personal events that my tutor knows about, so I am not sure what they would write about me if they were just going off my transcript. I could contact my tutor from my undergrad who would give me a very good reference, but I left there 7 years ago, & only finished my MA one year ago, so it might look a bit weird? Or I could contact my supervisor on my recent volunteer job (research assistant).

& neither of my universities (UCL & SOAS) are listed on the online application form, so I don't seem to be able to record them as part of my education. I can fill in all my A level module results though (do I have to do that?)

[MagicMountain]

You could always ask the course director to do it (unless this is the same person who is your tutor). I would email a couple of the other people you have had contact with during the MA and even explain about the non-response. The others will have access to whatever you have got on file in terms of extenuating circs. and so on. Frustrating, though.

[RillaBlythe]

Thanks. The course director is the same person. I don't think anything is on file about extenuating circs, my tutor was the only person who knew, I didn't do anything formally. Just spoke to a course mate who tried to get a reference last year from the same woman, couldn't get a response either. It's so annoying because she agrees verbally to be a referee & then ignores you.

So you think I should pursue an academic reference & not get my volunteer supervisor to do it?

[MagicMountain]

I would try. It may be that if you ask someone else and mention that original tutor has not responded, they will be more successful than you when it comes to reminding her that she needs to get on with it.