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?

She has a better chance this year than other years as in my experience unis are being much more flexible.

I know its not at all funny but the matt cartoon in the Torygraph is rather amusing...

www.telegraph.co.uk/

We all live in a strange world where even the educators are having to make new decisions all the time and no one can really plan or see the future.

She's worked hard, she's been hard on herself. She needs a plan.

Wrote an email apologising and explain what happened and ask if there is anything she can do to make it right.

Be kinder to herself.

Buy her a nice wall planner for reminders.

Be kinder to herself.

Appreciate her mum

Look after herself.

And I know I said be kind twice. So many people are so hard on themselves and really shouldn't be.

She may get a slight reduction of the percentage of her mark as she was late. She could appeal though if so advising of her mental health issues, perhaps refer to this that is why she did not check her emails.

Please get her to contact her GP today and get a doctor's note detailing her current relapse that she can send to the university.

There is probably an official channel she can apply for extenuating circumstances if she is ill. Medical evidence that backs up why she is struggling will give her the best chance.

This is a young woman with a history of serious mental health problems, frankly her mental health sounds very fragile now if you are worrying about suicidal ideation. The impact her mental health has on daily living should not be dismissed.

I’ve worked in fe and he for years. We really really want people to pass. We will do almost anything to get them through. If she just gets in touch and apologises they will accept it. If I have students that don’t achieve I have to justify it- I would much prefer to be accommodating and accept it. It’ll be fine- but it would be polite to call and let her tutor know what’s gone on

I would second this, in Spades.

The university's reputation is dependent upon its pupil achievement rate, and I know when I lectured there were some students who were a nightmare, and TBH I would have failed them for attitude, work standard, non-appearance at lectures - but the uni policy was to do almost anything and everything to keep them online and get them through.

But she really MUST get in touch and not wait until they contact her.

I'm an academic. For what it's worth if I was her supervisor then I would support her in being eligible for the hour's grace period. Giving a clear, honest reason for the late submission may help.

Also, if she suffers depression, this COVID situation woill have been doubly stressful for her - this could be the reason (NOT excuse) that she is focussing on "perfection" - self-criticism is a huge factor in depressive illness.

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.

Yeah. The thing is that just because mental health issues irritate other people who deem you as flaky - that doesn't make you magically able to get rid of said depression or anxiety.

You say the above like it's purely down to choice, like a good talking to about what employers expect and need from their staff is enough to make a sick person buck up and just get over being mentally ill

It doesn't work like that.

I'm in the final throes of a master's degree and throughout the course, rules regarding deadlines, word counts etc have been strictly adhered to. Deadlines were extended across the board for certain assignments and students were encouraged to apply for mitigation if required (and told they would get it without question), but when there's a deadline, that's it.

She had an extra 6 WEEKS and still fucked it up? Actually AIMED to be 58 minutes after the deadline?

I know we all did dumb stuff at that age, but that's plumbed a new depth.

I suspect they'll let her off, but still. She needs to be crawling on her hands and knees to BEG for grace on this.
"I didn't read my emails." Or "I wanted to take every minute to make it perfect" isn't really an excuse that will fly.

[quote Genevieva]@HopelessatHousework very true. One of the advantages of the old Cambridge degree system was that it was 100% exam based so I have never faced such a predicament. We did write essays each week for each of our supervisors, but none of these counted towards anything and, because we had to turn up at the supervision on time and read the essay aloud, it simply wasn't possible to push the deadline. When you do that much writing by hand on a regular basis you become skilled at planning and writing once because you can't push paragraphs around later. I think it is good preparation for working efficiently under pressure.[/quote]
The other argument - and I say this with my own Cambridge degree - is that it teaches you to write and say a lot very confidently and very quickly without worrying all that much about whether you think it's right, as evidenced by, for instance, the current prime minister.

When I was a Cambridge undergrad (mid 2000s) it was all exams except the dissertation and two long essays. They told us that if we didn't physically hand in our long essay by 1pm it simply wouldn't be marked. I remember seeing my very public school friend saunter over to the Fac at 2pm, essay in hand. I asked, horrified, what he was doing and he said 'They obviously won't let me fail my degree for the sake of an hour?'. He was right, of course - the department administrator rolled her eyes and told him off and added it to the pile.

Best of luck. I agree with the poster who suggested you draft an email for her, and then get her to read it and send it off. If she can send it today she may have an answer by the end of the working day tomorrow and hopefully will be told that it's been accepted.

Hi OP - I ended up, an hour before my dissertation deadline a couple of years back, struck with the sudden realisation it wouldn't be done in time. I went into a complete panic, emailed everyone and whilst some in the student office were very strict and harsh with me (I was the one who messed up, fair enough) my course supervisor was lovely, had a long talk with me, and told me how to get it sorted, but he couldn't do the process for me as I needed to show I was on top of it (there was other things going on that had led me to lose the plot a little for that last semester!). They ended up giving me a 2 day emergency extension, and I was able to get my grade without penalties.
They want students to pass, but your daughter does need to show willing, contact them herself, and show that she is on it.

And she has my sympathy, I still have nightmares of the raw panic when I thought my degree was now down the toilet due to my own stupidity....

The mental health issues could also relate to her leaving until the very last moment.

Our eldest daughter also has had some mental health difficulties and is on medication and did not meet her final year project deadlines due to chasing perfection and losing focus at times.

@zingally what is the actual point of posting such an unhelpful post? I don't get it, does it make you feel good?

She might want to look for a mitigating circumstances form now and submit ASAP.

^^This.

I’ve spent my career working in FE / HE and now sit on exam boards in my current role. It strikes me as highly unlikely that the university would have a different grace period for resubmissions as there will be students resubmitting who under the university’s assessment regulations could be sitting as a deferral, or resitting as a first attempt who shouldn’t be penalised / disadvantaged in any way. While it would be a good idea for your daughter to contact her course leader, I’d also get her to contact the course administrator / departmental registrar (the roles may be called something different as it varies from institution.) Very often the academics don’t understand the rules in the same way support staff do and can give confusing information. FWIW we’ve been much more flexible our students at our boards during COVID. Best wishes to you and your daughter x

What sort of feedback is she getting from reddit?

Well ages ago i had a very bad experience with the late submission , though it was just an essay that carried 50% of the marking for the particular course ( so not as big as dissertaion ). It was submitted 15 minutes after the extra 1 hour buffer time. I failed on that one...no amount of begging helped. I remember the course leader told me that they would have accepted it only in the limitted amout of circumstances othrwise it would be unfair to the others, and he told me that this would teach me a very important lesson in life. I was furious at that time. Still emotionally scarred my the experience!

@Jargo

Yes! I woke up and the "you have missed your submission deadline" email was on my phone screen. I think I actually levitated out of bed in fear.

Luckily I've got a very good supervisor and am a faculty rep for the DC so they knew who I was etc and it got sorted. Took a couple of weeks but I think I visibly aged about 15 years in that fortnight.

@zingally

She had an extra 6 WEEKS and still fucked it up? Actually AIMED to be 58 minutes after the deadline?

I know we all did dumb stuff at that age, but that's plumbed a new depth.

I suspect they'll let her off, but still. She needs to be crawling on her hands and knees to BEG for grace on this.
"I didn't read my emails." Or "I wanted to take every minute to make it perfect" isn't really an excuse that will fly.

You're right that is was stupid. But she didn't get an extra 6 weeks to work on the previous submission, She had 6 weeks in total to do a whole new dissertation, with a new topic. (Start from the beginning)

@Gannicusthemannicus

Hi OP - I ended up, an hour before my dissertation deadline a couple of years back, struck with the sudden realisation it wouldn't be done in time. I went into a complete panic, emailed everyone and whilst some in the student office were very strict and harsh with me (I was the one who messed up, fair enough) my course supervisor was lovely, had a long talk with me, and told me how to get it sorted, but he couldn't do the process for me as I needed to show I was on top of it (there was other things going on that had led me to lose the plot a little for that last semester!). They ended up giving me a 2 day emergency extension, and I was able to get my grade without penalties. They want students to pass, but your daughter does need to show willing, contact them herself, and show that she is on it.

And she has my sympathy, I still have nightmares of the raw panic when I thought my degree was now down the toilet due to my own stupidity....

Thank you so much for this.

Very often the academics don’t understand the rules in the same way support staff do and can give confusing information.

This is an excellent point, and I say that as an academic. I despair of my colleagues sometimes.

a deadline minute is just absurd. What about last minute power outages or technical problems?

That is why there was an hour's grace period for the original submission, to allow for power cuts or technical problems -- our submission guidelines are very clear that these are not valid excuses for late submissions. This was an resubmission, with an extra six weeks, so there is really not much excuse for tinkering down to the wire.

OP, I'm an academic. In my institution, in other years a late dissertation submission would be marked, but penalised (capped at 40%, so it would pass if it was of passing quality, but not get a distinction, for instance), but a clear, apologetic email explaining the misunderstanding, and referring to a history of depression MH problems, if already documented with her tutor/the institutions counselling or disability services etc, would be very likely to mean it was marked on its merits, particularly this year.

But we can't take into account what we don't know, so your daughter needs to communicate with her tutor./supervisor. Best wishes.

@triff123. this is important

I don’t know if you saw my post earlier but she needs to look for a mitigating circumstances form and submit it ASAP if there is one.