Does my daughter stand a chance at all?

[triff123]

This is a copy of her reddit post:

My dissertation was due today at 12 and the university’s policy is that any work submitted 1 hour after the deadline will not receive any penalties, so I submitted my work at 12:58. After which I went on my email to let the course leader know that I’ve submitted it and saw the email she sent 6 weeks ago that said because this is a resubmission, work must be submitted by the deadline or they won’t be marked and the assignment failed. I don’t know what to do, I’ve not emailed anything to the course leader because I’m panicked, scared, angry, sad and can’t think straight, and I’ve also not received an email form anyone. This was my last piece of work. I don’t know what to do

Is there anything she can do?

@Zilla1

OP,

keep communication open with your DD.
if any demerit is applied then appeal, based on COVID (and MH). Make it clear to the university what their path of least resistance will be.
encourage your daughter not to catastrophise in the short term and learn from experience in the long term.
Congratulate her on completing her studies and help her plan for her next steps once it's clear what will happen.
Good luck.

Thank you

@Livpool

People on here are harsh!

A young woman made a mistake - she doesn't need 20 lashes!

OP - I would very much echo others that she needs to get in touch with the tutor. Once that is done I am sure everything will be fine

Thank you

OP I feel so sorry for you, it must be hard to see your child go through this but if she's 21 she needs to understand that if she cocks up, mental health issues or not she needs to try to sort things herself not rely on you to do it for her.

Yeah, its hard to avoid the feeling that some people enjoy any chance to feel superior

I don't know about this. Maybe some people do feel like that but I think most of us just find it frustrating when people just seem .... flaky? Because the reality is that right now, rightly or wrongly employers are going to be able to be extremely picky about who they employ and reliable people are going to be far more attractive to them. It wasn't great before but I think that companies are going to sadly be even less understanding about mental health issues.

My DH moans so much about some of the graduates he manages who just seem incapable of hitting deadlines or producing precise technical reports. He says it's as if they've never been taught that they matter. Hope your DD gets it sorted.

Wow - would people really fail someone for handing their dissertation in 58 minutes late?

Yes. She gets an extra hour, why should everyone else lose out?

@YorkshireTeaIsTheBest

Email the course leader copy and paste the bit about the extra hour allowed previous and explain she thought it still applied and ask if it will be counted as submitted and marked.

Don't ignore it.

You are right. Thank you

If she can she should go to see her personal tutor to discuss with them and then follow up via email - a f2f is probably best. If not then a call or email is the next best thing.

She's obviously made a big mistake, but there is no point telling her this - she knows. Give her lots of reassurance saying you love her and whilst uni is important things other things like family are more important. Obviously I don' know her but if things go really wrong and the Uni won't accept the work maybe you could reason it wasn't meant to be and as one door has shut another one will soon open. I realise that's horribly tough on her though especially if she suffer with MH problems). I will her all the best and hope you can get it resolved.

Completely different scenario but I walked out of uni due to severe PND and refused to hand in my dissertation. Even an email from them asking how I was gave me a panic attack. They knew about my mental health and they actually applied mitigating circumstances on my behalf and six months later my degree certificate was posted through my door!

The best thing to do is start emailing the tutor, explaining the mental health issues and investigating their guidelines for mitigating circumstances.

The only thing she can do is contact them and explain.
Why didn't she get the email 6 weeks ago?
Could be an expensive lesson in not leaving it until the last minute.

@triff123 many many centuries ago I was late with part of my degree submission. I spoke to the lecturer straight away and explained my reasons - that I had just mis-timed really badly, that I had no real excuse apart from total stupidity on my part. He told me he was so grateful for my honesty when he had to listen to so many (probably) made up excuses that he wasn’t going to penalise me at all. So please get your DD to contact their supervisor and explain. It was stupid but also understandable - and I do think her MH difficulties are a significant reason for her judgment being off in this instance.

Good luck for you both.

@IsaLain

What's with all the "a young woman made a mistake". She isnt 12 years old starting high school with no idea what's going on. She is an adult, tigen very clear instructions and has already gone through years of further education. Handing things in on time really is the most basic concept which she would have learned many years ago.

You're right. But not very helpful.

What’s odd is that many people with anxiety would want to get it submitted ahead of time precisely to avoid anxiety.

What could be more stressful than submitting it 2 mins before the (assumed) deadline?

It sounds like a Russian Roulette, self destructive impulse rather than an anxious one.

Does she suffer from a need for things to be perfect OP?

Anorexics do tend to have perfectionist personalities, from the little I have read about the condition, so this may be a factor in her submitting at the last minute.

Your daughter does sound like she needs help to develop resilience and to be able to manage situations that cause her anxiety, and with her MH in general.

You OP, sound like you may need help to get to know and understand your daughter. I totally understand how hard it is when you see people you care about seeming to self-sabotage, but it seems like your daughter has serious and ongoing MH issues, so she's not really freely choosing her behaviour, in the same way someone without her issues would be. And she is young, it sounds like she simply interpreted that hour as ' great a way for me to perfect before I submit' rather than seeing it as a buffer in case there is a technical fault. That sounds like inexperience to me. She really did try to hit the deadline, as she understood it.

Its great you are looking for how to help with this incident. I liked pp suggestion of you writing the email so she only needs to send it.

@Genevieva thing is though, even with a deadline day there's ultimately a deadline minute - plenty would be trying to hand in just as the building was physically shutting for the day, or at midnight if it didn't!

Of course OP's DD should have known better. I've been there still typing essays on the train at 11.20 on the way to submit by the 12pm deadline, and I'm naturally a procrastinator so I completely understand editing it right up to the last possible moment

If it helps, though, I have learnt to manage my time now and be strict with myself and have had a successful corporate career and run a team in a high pressure environment with no problem with deadlines etc, I just get on with it now. It took me a while but I did get it eventually! Similarly I have two friends who didn't even actually graduate at their first university because they just couldn't get themselves together to actually submit the work on time at all! Ridiculous really sure and no doubt cost them a fortune added to their loan but they are very successful people now with prestigious careers. None of us really remember that time other than thinking what were we like?

So although yes really a young adult should know better the fact they didn't manage to sort it earlier doesn't mean they are destined to continue that way.

@WinterIsGone

Hopefully, the course leader will be lenient. Fingers crossed.

[On a technicality, did it specify GMT or BST? If she submitted it by 1 BST, it was technically 12 GMT.]

Hi, it just said "by noon"

Sorry forgotten how to message
If you message me I will reply with example of personal experience
Thanks

Oh and - I think my friends and I were also procrastinators because we were perfectionists too and wanted to do it just right so much that it felt impossible to just make a bloody start! Once we learnt to manage that the trait probably helped our lives later

OP, leave Mumsnet, give her tutor or welfare dept a call with the suggestions above. It will make more progress if you actually take action.

Wishing you the best.

@BlueJava

If she can she should go to see her personal tutor to discuss with them and then follow up via email - a f2f is probably best. If not then a call or email is the next best thing.

She's obviously made a big mistake, but there is no point telling her this - she knows. Give her lots of reassurance saying you love her and whilst uni is important things other things like family are more important. Obviously I don' know her but if things go really wrong and the Uni won't accept the work maybe you could reason it wasn't meant to be and as one door has shut another one will soon open. I realise that's horribly tough on her though especially if she suffer with MH problems). I will her all the best and hope you can get it resolved.

Thank you. However the university is shut for to covid, so she can't go face to face.

@EveningNibble

Completely different scenario but I walked out of uni due to severe PND and refused to hand in my dissertation. Even an email from them asking how I was gave me a panic attack. They knew about my mental health and they actually applied mitigating circumstances on my behalf and six months later my degree certificate was posted through my door!

The best thing to do is start emailing the tutor, explaining the mental health issues and investigating their guidelines for mitigating circumstances.

Thank you.

She gets an extra hour, why should everyone else lose out?

Well everyone who wasn't resubmitting did get that hour.

People are talking like she deliberately missed a deadline. She didn't.
She thought she was within the rules. Definitely would have been within the rules if she wasn't resubmitting. May still be, as pp suggested.

Email today as above and also prepare to be an arse. Be clear that you will appeal, sue and it can magically resolve. A friend’s son had the same and it went from ‘not under any circumstance’ to one view of the mitigating circumstances’ as soon as a lawyer was involved.

The university will not want her to fail the course. It makes them look bad and it’s in their interest to bend the rules if at all possible, as long as the individual hasn’t taken the piss.

Please, please get her to contact the right person at the university.

to her. She has to face her fears and sort it out.

Oh, poor DD

We've all been young and daft and handled things badly under pressure. I don't know any academic who wouldn't accommodate this. It's an hour.

Keeping everything crossed for her

OP - there are some very harsh comments here today. Some people really have no compassion and must all have perfect DC.

I really hope all works out for your daughter.

Sorry if you have already covered this but was it a capped or uncapped resubmission? For example did she have accepted extenuating circumstances that allowed her to resubmit with no penalty?
If it was uncapped, certainly where I work, the penalties for a late submission are not as bad as it is seen as a first attempt and the penalties are on a sliding scale.

Obviously try and contact someone but like a pp said, clearing will likely be the focus at the moment.

If you have a student centre or hub of some kind it may also be worth contacting them. The student adviser role varies between institutions and obviously depends on who you get but they might be able to give you an idea of who to contact, what information to look at or possibly take the enquiry and do some digging to get back to you.

The university should have their senate regulations online and you might be able to gather from that what the worst case scenario would be if it was completely discounted, while waiting for a response. Or maybe you'll be able to ascertain the expected repurcussions of not submitting on time.