AIBUto feel so angry with Dd's Uni

[Booklover123]

Dd taking her finals, first exam was today. Phoned me straight after distraught, as they had failed to provide the necessary appendices. Entire room were in tears, invigilators contacted dpt but to no avail.Were told to continue exam which they could not without the supplementary information! Tonight dd has received an e mail from said dpt "apologising for the error and mistake will be rectified". But how wii this be done? AIBU to be absolutely fuming with this utter balls up happening?

Of course the students were upset. I agree with a pp...if you cannot empathise with their feelings then you've never sat finals. The pressure that is piled on them, the work and revision, only to have it wasted by a uni that can't get their paperwork right?!

So the uni will make allowances in the results...damn right they should! Surely students who now have to pay extortionate tuition fees deserve a minimal standard of service for their money, which should of course include not fucking up one of the most important exam paper that many of the students will ever sit. FFS!

YANBU at all OP. I'd be furious and wanting answers from the uni. 'Ah well, never mind, we'll make allowances when marking' isn't good enough.

Thankyou for all your helpful responses. To clarify a point,it was the students who flagged up that the appendice was missing, and they were met with confusion and dilly dallying from that point on. The students had to convince the examiners present that the appendice was indeed missing, and then more delay and confusion whilst relevant dpt was contacted, tutor then informed examiner that the students were to carry on with exam and did not at any point during the 2hour exam acknowledge that this was totally incorrect information. The students protested after the exam to their departmental head and only after that,6 hours later, did they receive an e mail acknowledging their "error"!
Some posters are deriding and belittling the students for not being mature enough at the grand age of 21and for crying. I think it must have been a very distressing situation that should have been avoided. Shame on the dpt for not checking and for not acting more promptly and professionally and dare I say it for some of the posters on here for showing a total lack of empathy.
But a big Thankyou to most of the posters that have been most helpful and encouraging with their advice, much appreciated. Silly of me to post in AIBU!

Whizbang - what do you think they should have done? Beyond not having it happen in the first place?

Trinity, it is finals that my dd is sitting.

As part of the interview for my first graduate job they outlined a scenario where you're going to do a presentation, but the train breaks down, and your laptop doesn't work, and you spill water on your notes, and someone comes in late and you have to start again etc etc Whatever answer I came up with they created another difficulty. In the end I just laughed and said well I don't know that's impossible. I got the job. The whole point was to see how the candidates reacted to difficulties.

You may have already had this advice but your DD needs to keep a record of the information given to her. She ought to keep contact details for the other students. See what the uni does, if not happy, rally the other students and use the university's complaints procedure. If that is unsatisfactory you can go to the office of the independent adjudicator.

isshoes maybe the dept could have produced the missing appendix and allowed extra time, once they knew it had been left off?

I've skimmed the thread because it is so long and wow!!!! such a lack of empathy, I can only assume a lot of posters have either never sat finals, or don't have children at uni!

I am a graduate of a RG uni, and hold a Masters from a different uni's well-regarded business school. I graduated in 1985, and I still have the 'exam dream' where I don't know what dates my exams are on, which papers are when, the location of the exams, and I can't find my notes!!! Anyone who doesn't understand the pressure of final exams is, imho, an idiot. These kids have been pushed to achieve most of their lives. Exams, going right back to at least A level, maybe even O level, have given me a lifelong issue with IBS - and I was a high achiever.

So, while my 22 year old self might or might not have cried back in 1985, I can totally understand why these youngsters did cry. I have student daughters, 18 and 20, and I would be outraged and upset on their behalf - isn't that what mums are for?

I can see where the academics posting are coming from, and I agree that university education should not be a 'commodity'; however, the imposition of uni fees has done exactly that - turned university education into a service. Very many students are not getting 'value for money' either.

Not if there was another exam due in after that one: there's usually not much changeover time between exam sits

Isshoes...that's cheating ;-). IMO it should never have happened in the first place, full stop. Any competent institution would have checks in place to ensure this couldn't happen. And yet....

Even though the uni in question could not manage to distribute the correct papers, the students still deserve a better - and frankly a more contrite - response than the stonewalling described by the OP in her recent update.

A six hour wait for an email is not stonewalling. Students have already received an apology, and they've been told that the mistake will be rectified. Also why is "error" in inverted commas? It is an error? I think there are some seriously unrealistic expectations here.

As for the suggestion of producing the appendix and allowing extra time, that's not something that can just happen off the cuff. As someone else said, timetabling is a nightmare, so it may not have been possible. Furthermore, a decision to allow extra time can't just be made on the spot. That would be highly irregular.

In terms of the competence of the university, as far as we know, this is the only mistake that they have made in administering exams for thousands of students this summer. For the students concerned it feels like a huge deal. But the extent of their anxiety is not a yardstick for the university's level of competence.

I can empathise - son sat an exam this year (finals) which turned out to be last year's paper and the module has changed. He was furious but only told us out of interest in general conversation about how things were going - he'd been sounding off about it with his coursemates and friends, and they had already had discussions with the uni to a very high level. The uni will compensate them somehow after looking at the papers. I am really cross on his behalf - having worked for a department running degree courses I can't believe they managed to send the wrong paper to the exams department, but it happened and the uni will sort it out the best they can.

I'm proud of how he handled things. He stayed and did the exam to the best of his ability whereas it sounds like some people walked out. It is a monumental balls up but we have to trust the uni to do the right thing by the students. I'm not sure what the weighting of the exam was in relation to the module/overall course.

Thank goodness he has his last exam tomorrow then he can concentrate on deciding what to do with his life!!

Dd has just finished her 4th year vet exams - saw her and 4 friends last night before they went off on a quick break before year 5 starts in 2 weeks time - now, they know about stress!! I don't know how they manage it. Two exams a day for 8 days.... And straight back to their clinical placements.

Good luck for results everyone :-)

Were you one of the invigilators Isshoes?

Something similar happened on my course years ago. In one of the modules, the exam was meant to be: pick 3 of the following 6 questions to answer. They were told in advance it would be pick 3. They go into the actual exam and it says "pick 4". No one knew what to do. The invigilators were useless and had no clue. They just said do what the paper says. But there wasn't really time to answer 4 properly. So some people did 3 and some did 4. It was a mess. The university said a half-assed "it'll be taken into account in the grading" but I'm not convinced they really did.

I don't blame your child or the others for being upset. It's an extremely stressful situation. I think universities don't handle exams well and aren't held accountable for their mistakes.

No Whizbang but I work in HE and have every sympathy for them. This thread contains a number of examples of people assuming that higher tuition fees should mean that first class customer service can be expected, with zero margin for error. As I've said several times, universities are not now any better off - in fact most are significantly worse off. And at the same time students and their parents are increasingly unrealistic in their demands and their expectations. It's like if the NHS ceased to exist - patients would have to pay for their treatment to compensate for the loss of government funding, but if the fees were capped, rather than being reflective of what it actually costs to treat a patient, let alone including a margin of profit, you couldn't immediately expect the level of service to be significantly improved.

my favourite thing about this thread is the people saying "well if you think crying and being distressed at this is unreasonable then YOU mustn't have gone to uni or have kids intelligent enough to do so!" EERRRRRMMM how about no, some of us just don't react that way to things and have a different opinion to you, where we or our kids were educated has nothing to do with it!

Stoicism is a good thing, but so is empathy.

Hope it all works out for the best, OP. I'm sure it will.

I thought it was something awful. Did you explain to DD that she'll likely take the exam again as the first was void, given they had no info?

I think it's a bit extreme there was a room of crying 21 year olds for some fuck up which rendered the exam pointless.

Just. Can't. Cope.

If there's a problem (in any situation) then people need to work together to resolve it.

OP, unfortunately your DD stressing out and crying isn't going to make matters any better. There are 2 solutions to the problem. Either the uni can adjust the marks to reflect the missing appendices, or they can schedule another time and date for it to be done properly.

Not worth getting het up about, and the upside of rescheduling the exam is that she will get at least some time to go over things she didn't feel so great on. Even if it was scheduled for tomorrow at 9.30am, she'd still have a bit of time to go over her notes. It's a lot better than a kick in the teeth.

I hope it is sorted out soon. BTW, have the uni been in touch after their initial email?

What an utter disgrace they are paying a huge amount of money for it too.At least all in same boat just try to get her to remain calm for the rest.

I've skimmed the thread because it is so long and wow!!!! such a lack of empathy, I can only assume a lot of posters have either never sat finals, or don't have children at uni!

Hilarious.

I can assure you I have sat many finals and what's more I have worked at universities in different capacities. You know what they say about assuming ...

Horribly stressful for her, but (from experience in Universities) they will make up for it, so try to reassure her.

As others have pointed out, she'll be aware of weak points and get extra chance to revise. I doubt they'd issue the same paper again. I'd look on it as a good thing though.

Yeah, it's annoying but these things happen.
Your daughter is at university. She's an adult - cut the apron strings