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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBUto feel so angry with Dd's Uni

377 replies

Booklover123 · 09/05/2017 22:46

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?

OP posts:
TrinityTaylor · 12/05/2017 10:41

TheStoic I have to say that post made me smile with your user name Smile

I do have empathy like I said I've had exam fuck ups in the past including tapes that didn't work in a spanish exam and that lovely time in sixth form when I had some bladder illness thing and practically peed myself during a 3hr extension paper 😂😂 I just think it is not worth a)getting too worked up over when you've been told it will be sorted and b) not that op is saying she will, but some posters going all gung ho saying they'd be ringing the uni and kicking up a fuss etc, just silly when these are 21 yr olds we are talking about

Garlicansapphire · 12/05/2017 10:48

Had a fuck up in my finals with the wrong paper - was gutted and tried as best I could. I imagine I did a bit better than those that went to pieces. I mentioned it when I saw my parents at the end of term but not at the time - I had to get on and revise for the next exam and anyway I didnt got running to my parents about my troubles - I think I only rang them twice a term!

Still maybe you can bring it up at parents evening! Smirk.

MissEDashwood · 12/05/2017 11:03

It sounds harsh but she's entering the ugly world of adulthood. If she has a problem with her boss, is she going to expect you to write a note? In the nicest way possible, if you over indulge, you'll always be trying to mitigate her problems.

I see it sometimes now, grown up women with mothers who almost treat the adult like a child. So when ill with a tummy bug, Mum will abandon Dad and other family to hold the daughters hair back, instead of saying get a bobble, I'll bring over some ice pops so you keep hydrated.

In that scenario, I've been ill most of my life, I feel a lot better for being able to suffer independently, over needing to have 1:2:1 attention. I guess everyone deals with things in their own way, it's beneficial for her to learn how to handle things independently, but still have you to complain to, without expecting you to act if that makes sense.

Original poster
Booklover123 · 12/05/2017 11:11

MissE, I haven't acted in any way , other than come on mumsnet!

OP posts:
TrinityTaylor · 12/05/2017 11:11

Garlician - one of my best friends at uni in the very first term asked when our end of term reports would be posted home for our
Parents 😂 bless her, she quickly adapted and is just a fantastic person but goshI that first year was a learning curve! She also wasn't allowed to learn to drive but thats another story!

Please note- am in no way saying op's dd is like this!! I'm fairly sure my friend is a one off!

Garlicansapphire · 12/05/2017 11:15

Trinity - love it! Poor girl.

I think maybe more kids might be wrapped in tissue paper these days as they can text all the time and call and skype etc. In my day we didn't have access to phones so got on with it. I was determinedly independent at that point - didnt want my parents messing with my messy life.

Original poster
Booklover123 · 12/05/2017 11:19

No trinity, my dd is very independent and has thoroughly enjoyed her3 years away at uni, but she knows I am always at the end of the phone for her! Please don't pan me for this, neither of us are clingy but I always want her to know him much she is loved as sadly I lost my mum when only age 19.

OP posts:
Original poster
Booklover123 · 12/05/2017 11:20

Him=how!

OP posts:
TrinityTaylor · 12/05/2017 11:24

Booklover - oh I don't think your dd is anything like that girl I was talking about! I too am super close with my mum and my dd's with me. I'm my 9 yo's "BFF" apparently Grin I just don't think other posters on here are doing you any favours by encouraging you to be angry/ get involved etc, when I really think your dd will be fine and it will work out fine. I'm sure her grades will be amazing and the mess up will be forgotten about.

LadySalmakia · 12/05/2017 11:28

FWIW I am a millennial and a university employee and have a whole clutch of degrees. And nothing I've done so far has been more stressful than my finals, which were the old school kind where all three years of work are resting on just 7 exams in one week.

I would have been shaken by this and may have cried but as in much of life you have to hold it together. I'm sure the reason I've been less stressed by other events is because I survived my finals so I know how to manage now! (Um, years of counselling not withstanding).

I hope the rest of her exams went well OP.

And to the parents who are insisting they are the customer here - no. University financing is fucked up and yes you might be footing the bill for bits of it to help your children but you are not the customer. No one is a customer. Your children are students and the whole system works much more effectively to educate them when students and staff remember that.

Original poster
Booklover123 · 12/05/2017 11:29

Ah I love it when your little ones love you so much and even are going to marry mum and dad!
Dd is hoping for a 1st or a high 2:1, I will return to update!

OP posts:
Original poster
Booklover123 · 12/05/2017 11:32

Thankyou Lady. Dd is on her 3rd finals today 4to go!

OP posts:
Lancelottie · 12/05/2017 12:03

That's rough, even if they do adjust the marks. Some students will have been counting on that being their best paper.

Original poster
Booklover123 · 12/05/2017 13:39

My thoughts exactly,lancelottie

OP posts:
MiladyThesaurus · 12/05/2017 15:09

I would imagine the the process is not going to disadvantage students counting on it as their best paper.

Even getting 10 or 15 more than your usual performance has a limited effect of the average when it's only 20 credits out of 120 taken that year. So it wouldn't have pulled them up much anyway.

Regardless, the exam board will look any borderline (or even not that borderline) cases for affected students. Our exam boards would probably be willing to pretend that a student might have got 100% in that exam if it pulled them up a grade boundary for degree classification purposes.

Honestly, some students might delude themselves that the only reason they didn't get a 2:i is because the university messed up but the truth is that if you've been averaging 55 across your degree, that one module that you thought you might get 65 in won't have made that much difference.

KellysZeros · 12/05/2017 15:11

Out of interest, did you say the extent to which the missing information affected the exam paper? (i.e. was it something that made one question impossible, e.g. a table of coefficients or so, and where you might have been able to assume a value from knowledge, or one that made the whole exam impossible?)

I hope your DD does well on the rest of her exams

GoatsFeet · 12/05/2017 15:18

Honestly, some students might delude themselves that the only reason they didn't get a 2:i is because the university messed up but the truth is that if you've been averaging 55 across your degree, that one module that you thought you might get 65 in won't have made that much difference.

Yup. I pointed that out upthread to all the people demonising universities.

All universities have publicly available Examination Regulations, which will outline what should happen. Just as if the whole cohort sitting this exam were gassed in the room by construction workers outside, or there was a fire or whatever. There are hundreds of thousands of students sitting exams this month. Mistakes are rare, and there are procedures to deal with them.

Lancelottie · 12/05/2017 15:20

I'm biased by having the sort of child who would get A* on one module and E on another at school age. Tended to average As by the seat of his pants and the luck of the draw.

Mind you, looking at it the other way, missing out on the module you're worst at would help a lot in that case.

Foureyesarebetterthantwo · 12/05/2017 15:50

These days, employers are asking for transcripts which are printouts of what you got in every single assessment at university, so if there were one anomalous grade 55% amongst a sea of 60s and 70's it would be very obvious and also very unlikely to be the one deciding grade. If it were, then the exam board would look through the whole transcript and then tip it towards the upper grade.

Also, in some unis students can get a first if they have a first in the majority of their final year modules, so having one lower one and being under 70 as a result would still allow them to get a first.

Exams are regulated, and any adjustments agreed amongst a panel/exam board, it isn't just up to one person who makes it up as they go along !

GoatsFeet · 12/05/2017 15:53

missing out on the module you're worst at would help a lot in that case.
Indeed! In my discipline,there is a division between different aspects of the subject (theoretical and practical) and if a student's results were averaged from say 7 out of the 8 modules (the 8th the stuffed-up exam paper) of which 4 were of one type, and 3 of the other, and the 4 complete modules the ones in which students generally achieve higher marks, then yes, it would very much be to their advantage!

GoatsFeet · 12/05/2017 15:54

Foueyes quite a few of us have explained this in some detail, but still posters froth about how outrageous it all is ...

Foureyesarebetterthantwo · 12/05/2017 16:01

I know, GoatsFeet, I should just give up, it's Friday afternoon!

manicmij · 12/05/2017 16:39

"Kids" doing finals at University! Whole room in tears! Is that the level of students nowadays? You should back off, let your daughter sort it out, she is not the only one affected. Consider it a good lesson in how everything in like doesn't run smoothly. She and others will laugh about the muddle in time to come.

wildcoffeeandbeans · 12/05/2017 18:45

Re: the room being in tears, I'm a grown woman in my thirties and just sat my first UK-style exam the other day for my master's course. It was unbelievably stressful, and while I'm not normally a crier I wouldn't have been surprised if I had burst into tears if something had gone wrong with the exam. Honestly, I don't prefer the exam system here -- surely there are better ways to judge whether students have mastered the material (for my class, this single exam was 100% of our grade... for a class that had ended five months ago. Not great).

user1491399798 · 21/05/2017 20:18

I can still remember my finals, some twenty two years ago. Without a doubt, perspective goes out of the window during this phase.

Any challenges can feel amplified. Its important to realise that all people experience and manage these emotions.

In my case, I was sitting my finals, having been falsely accused of rape but not yet acquitted. The case was dropped when the young woman concerned made a similar allegation against another student.

I had to relocate and watched people quickly urn against me. Bottom line, I attained my degree and gained other qualifications while doing dead-end jobs afterwards.

True, these situations certainly left their mark. However, they were also a steep learning curve and has helped me deal constructively with some other, deeply unpleasant life events

Support your daughter but in an empowering, adult way.