To be completely fed up with my university?

[AveAtqueVale]

Had my final written exam today, and was half an hour late starting because they hadn’t registered me. (Not just me, a few of us, but all from different years/ courses so no real chance of collective complaint.)

I noticed yesterday I hadn’t been assigned a seat number on my student record thing, and went to query it, but then got an email saying ‘don’t worry if you don’t have a seat number - they’ll be available at the venue.’ So I turned up 45 minutes early as instructed, then they didn’t let us in for another 20 minutes. It’s a huge place over three floors, got misdirected twice to where the seating plans were, eventually found the right one and my name wasn’t on it . So went to the help desk where I waited for ages with lots of other irate students until 2 minutes before the exam started, when we were finally told we’d have to fill out forms before we could be assigned seats, that all took ages as had to be processed individually and there were loads of us, then finally got to seat and there was no script, so took ten more minutes to produce one.

I’m so fucked off. The exam was bloody hard as well and I barely finished and had no time to check through for errors, so will def have lost marks. And I was just very flustered. I don’t know why I’m posting this tbh - just this is the final straw in six years of administrative idiocy and incompetence from them, and I can’t believe I might have to resit now (which will also result in my mark being capped at a pass).

Email the chair of the exam board ASAP with as much specific detail as possible. And ask for a date to meet with them.

Was it Teesside by any chance?

Administrative errors are annoying but easily overcome.

You running out of time in a hard exam is all on you though. You pay for an education, not a grade.

Not when you are half an hour late starting through no fault of your own, steal!

You running out of time in a hard exam is all on you though.

If she was there on time but missed the first half hour due to having not been registered correctly by the university how is that on her?

Make an official complaint. We had to help our daughter do this. She actually got some financial redress, which was unexpected. We just didn't want anyone in subsequent years to be mislead and messed around in the way our DD was.

AveAtqueVale complain, complain, complain. I can't see how this was possibly your fault. Union should be your first port of call, who will help you with a plan of action. My uni is also deeply incompetent. Tbh I think most are.

The exam board will take special circumstances like this into account. You should contact your course leader to check that they have the facts and an impact statement from you. Be clear whether you want this or a chance to resit at a future date (but that is a difficult prospect as you will be out of step in your studies and revising will be harder). The Board will take into account if you are near a grade boundary point.

oh dear that is very very poor form. We get hauled over the coals for even the slightest typo in exam scripts I can't imagine what would happen if students weren't able to start on time like this!

You should certainly contact the chair of the board of examiners in your department and let them know exactly what happened and when you were able to start. They will indeed be able to take this into account when allocating final grades.

Since your late start was the university’s fault, not yours, @AveAtqueVale, they should have allowed all of the affect d students to make up the lost time at the end of the exam. If they didn’t do this, it is blatantly unfair.

@stealOfTheFuckingCentury - how is it the OP’s fault that she ran out of time, when the late start was entirely due to the university’s cock up?

This would be an exam irregularity where I am, which the invigilator should have logged for discussion at the exam board. Might be wise to email your personal tutor and the course leader or administrator too.

You running out of time in a hard exam is all on you though. You pay for an education, not a grade.

I wasn’t expecting it to be easy, but I was expecting to have enough time! I generally finish 20-30 minutes early which gives me enough time to check through for obvious errors, and have a bit more of a think about some of the harder questions. I did finish, but literally as they said ‘put your pencils down’, so had absolutely no time to check anything, which means on past experience I will have lost quite a few marks from inattention/ not thinking things through for long enough.

And no not Teesside - a London uni. Will be emailing/ ringing people tomorrow. I don’t really mind doing a resit in the summer but do object to having my grade capped. And this was supposed to be my last written exam - have practicals next week and then meant to be done apart from placements, so it just drags out the stress. I’m so sick of never seeing the DC/ working every night and weekend.

I think this is just the final straw because they’ve fucked up so many ‘minor’ administrative things over the years, the last one of which has had a major impact on my job prospects, and I’ve always just swallowed it and accepted that these things happen. But I’ve had enough. They are bloody useless.

And yes M3lon you’d think it would be a major problem wouldn’t you?! But apparently not. And nor were the duplicate questions. There are only 150 questions in the sodding exam; how hard is it to actually check none of them are repeats of each other?!