to think graduating with a 2:1 is not the same as graduating with a First?

[ClaudiaGooselover]

I am due to graduate this week from a top RG Uni, which is a massive achievement considering I've completed my studies around difficult life circumstances and having four children. I have achieved a First. However, my university sent me a letter saying I have a 2:1. When I queried it they said one assignment was three months late so I received no mark for it. This was incorrect and I was able to provide the mark and comment sheet to demonstrate I actually submitted it early.

They are now 'liasing' about this and said they'll just change my certificate after graduation if need be. Aibu to think that this isn't good enough? I've told everyone at uni and from my family who are attending that I have a First, I wanted the experience of being announced as a First after how hard I've worked to achieve it.

It mattered to me. Fight it OP.

A huge number of universities screw up marks, I have three family members (out of a total of only 9 cousins who went to Uni) who had various marks messed up, causing a number of problems. One sister had not been put down on the exam schedule for one of her courses and had to fight to be able to sit the exam on the day!

Fight them on it, they need to be held accountable.

At my Uni, the marks were shown in the Graduation booklet, so get it sorted in time for Graduation...

Good luck!

Yes, molio some degrees are based almost wholly on assignments. Especially in arts and humanities even at top unis.

For example, how sensible would it be to write an essay on Hamlet for three hours when you could take six weeks and really explore an aspect and compare critics and develop some new thinking? A degree in something like English isn't about regurgitating facts or presenting a ' here's one I prepared earlier' essay, - it's about developing arguments and evidencing them.

But I do understand that some/many unis use exams, even for English as in my example, so there are different approaches.

Of the top 20 in the Guardian league table the following are NOT RG:
St Andrews
Bath
Surrey
Lancaster
Heriot-Watt
East Anglia
Loughborough
Kent

It is certainly not true to say that only RG universities are at the top, particularly when you consider at least 3 of the top 20 paid a couple of million to join RG!

and OP get in touch with the Head of the Exams Office.

At my graduation we were called up in order of grades - no firsts in my group; I was one of two 2:1-ers, both of us missing a first by 2%.
Everyone got to shake hands with our guest speaker and we were presented with certificates there and then.

As many have said, definitely fight it. It's going to take them all of about four minutes to print out a new (correct) certificate.

Thanks for the English lesson Beck :) It's obviously a complete doddle to pick up marks on assignments, and there's clearly considerable scope for cheating. I guess that's why the best unis stick to mostly exams in humanities at undergrad level, even though these can be a very poor measure, unfortunately mostly at the top end.

At my graduation we did all go alphabetically...except those with firsts who went up separately. And the degree classification was printed on the programme.

A 2:1 is a fantastic degree to have...except when actually you got a first. Definitely fight it.

Exactly.

Exactly. Exactly ^

This is not about RG vs others, or 2.1 versus 1st, it is about getting the grade you actually achieved!

Get sorted asap, before the brochures go to print :) Put it in writing to the Chancellor as well. Keep it factual, polite and give them room to resolve with grace (and speed).

It's obviously a complete doddle to pick up marks on assignments, and there's clearly considerable scope for cheating. I guess that's why the best unis stick to mostly exams in humanities at undergrad level, even though these can be a very poor measure, unfortunately mostly at the top end.

Your statement is pretty uniformed. Most universities do not stick mainly to exams for humanities. There is generally a in, with some modules leaning more on one of the other.

It is not a 'complete dodle to pick up marks on assignments' and there isn't 'considerable scope for cheating'. How does one cheat exactly? If you mean plagiarise, most unis run essays through software which is surprisingly good at picking out lifted paragraphs and sentences. Reading books, papers and articles and isomg them to create an argument is exactly what you are meant to do. Just obviously referenced.

Oh. Lots of typos. Need better thumbs.

Fight it - I got a 2:1 from uni, but my whole cohorts grades weren't sent over to the graduation department (long time ago, pre computers...). We didn't realise until we entered the graduation hall and got the booklet. It said in the graduation booklet - if you don't have a grade you achieved a pass degree. So when the local newspaper used the graduation booklet to publish degree marks I was published as a pass. My new employers saw that newspaper... they weren't happy until I received my certificate several months later proving I really had a 2:1.

As many have said, definitely fight it. It's going to take them all of about four minutes to print out a new (correct) certificate.
Actually, speaking as someone who now works in a uni, generating the data required for certificates as part of my job, it actually takes a lot longer- there is a lot of fraud prevention required in certificate production, in all the background work as well as the printing. But it is still worth doing.

I think the OP only mentioned the RG thing as if to suggest that such a university might be better organised than a, say, Million+ institution.

At the university where I work all graduands are called up in alphabetical order but firsts are introduced.

Can't remember what happened at my own graduations because they happened at the beginning of time which as they were from a RG institution, might have been a helpful recollection.

I'm very informed in fact and know that some students get other people to writ assignments for them. Of course it's a relative doddle and it's also far easier if exams are spread over two years rather than one.

Oxford certainly sticks to mainly exams for humanities subjects, Cambridge too.

write :)

I would make a massive fuss about this, OP. If you are getting no joy from the admin staff and no effective back up from the academics in your department/faculty, I would ring or even visit the office of the Principal or Provost or whatever they call the most senior academic in the place and ask them to intervene. Be polite, but be assertive. This is a clear-cut case of maladministration. You have paid through the nose to do this degree and they have a duty to provide an administrative service of a decent standard. Make it plain that if necessary you will proceed to the formal complaints procedure. Of course this matters!

Practice varies at graduation ceremonies but if they do distinguish the people who got Firsts at your ceremony you want to be in the right group.

If you don't get it sorted out in time, you should definitely go on to use the complaints procedure. This is shockingly bad. (I write as a person who works in higher education as an administrator.)

Molio you sound ridiculously ignorant, despite your insistence that you are "very informed".

truffles I'm very confident that I'm not ignorant. I'm just making the unpopular point that not only has the number of top grades increased to ridiculous levels, but some systems of earning them are far easier than others. The system of bite sized modules at universities is comparable to the bite sized modular exams now discontinued at GCSE, AS and A2. Standards have dropped massively over the past decades. There's a huge range of 2.1s out there these days (very few of which would have been 2.1s back in the day) and a huge range of firsts as well. Sorry if you find that grinchy, but it's hard to argue that it's not true.

If that's the point you were trying to make I don't think you put it across very well with your talk of exams vs portfolios, Oxbridge vs the world, etc.

Just wanted to point out that idea that anything but examination grades is worthless is a very outdated and somewhat simplistic viewpoint, though I appreciate employers (you mentioned employers so I'm guessing you are one) have a different POV to academics.

I work in an admin department for a RG university and have quite a lot to do with our Graduation team. We would never just change this after the event, if it was brought to our attention in time for graduation - even more so if it was a departmental, and therefore university, error in awarding the 0 grade in the first place! We know how important graduation can be to our students and we try to get everything right for them.

(Our certificates are handed out on the day and graduands are introduced alphabetically, for the record.)

Fight it, OP.

Fight it!

Email your head of department and CC the admin people in too. You deserve to be awarded a 1st on graduation day. Even if they can't change the booklet, they can amend their own copy and call you out with the 1st folks.

Well done OP, hope you have treated yourself

Despite the fact we agree on other things on other threads, moilo I think you're not quite up to speed on this one. Look up the top uni for English in the country. It's not Oxbridge. They don't use extensive exams for their course - it's mostly assignments.

And you've got enough DC at top unis to know that cheating in assignments is not as widespread as you imply - the methods for detecting plagarism are very effective.

I don't know about the number of firsts overall over all the country. But at the uni I'm talking about for this years results it's 10%. Not a huge number - compares sensibly with the number of A* at A level for example.

But back to the OP - well done on your degree results - hard fought I'm sure and therefore well deserved. You are perfectly right to pursue this to the very end.

Congratulations. Definitely fight for this

Fight it OP! YANBU.

Also, for the sub-conversation that's going on, I did English and did lots of exams in my final year for the very sneaky reason that I find it much easier to concentrate for 2 hours than produce a finely crafted essay over 6 weeks so I picked my modules according to what the split between exam/assignment was. I got a 2:1 but there is no way I would have got this if I hadn't favoured exam based modules.