Daughter unable to attend her graduation ceremony as it is full. Advice please

[mildlyfried]

My daughter has just finished a three year Bsc (hons) at a major University. She has been advised that she cannot attend her graduation ceremony as it is full and she is on a waiting list. All the other ceremonies are at capacity too. She has been told that if a place does not become available then she can either try to graduate in November without her friends or have her certificate posted to her for a £10 fee.

To say we are upset and disappointed is an understatement. Has anyone ever heard of this before? I did not think a University would do this and would make sure they had enough graduation days/dates for all their students. The students have paid tens of thousands in fees and slogged for three years to be denied the chance to get their degree in a ceremony with their family watching.

Is there anyone out there with any advice? maybe someone who works at a University? I'm tempted to go to the local paper and tell the story so other students know what to expect at this University. Students should be told when they are choosing the University that they are not guaranteed a graduation.

Thanks for reading

Is that oxford or cambridge. I think in most universities they just hire them for the ceremonies.

She responded before the deadline and all graduates are normally automatically allocated a couple of tickets they can use (which may incur a cost) at any other university. It’s hardly the same not being able to graduate with your friends.

Lancaster do live stream for extra guests that can’t fit in the hall.

But because I’m well aware how skint Unis are I would still charge a small fee for that

I’d rather Uni money went on staff, facilities and research

Neither. He only bought it only he achieved the highest possible honour. I'd say well deserved. :-)

No. Obviously they use it for other things too. What is your point?

As said earlier, they can't just randomly add an extra ceremony is the venue is booked for something else. This is why they ask for intention to graduate earlier in the year, which OP's DD ignored. It allows them to have an idea of numbers and how many ceremonies will be needed. If too many people don't RSVP when asked and then try to jump on board at the time of actual ceremony registration, the numbers suddenly don't work anymore. Then some people will have to defer their graduation to the next round. (Personally, I hope those who did reply to the earlier intention to attend email get priority).

Lancaster have got nothing going on in the Great hall for the week after this years July graduation ceremonies. Or the week before either
So they could

Suggest it to them then :-). I suspect if a university could swing it they might if there was enough demand. In general I've found universities quite supportive of their students, though it may not be a realistic suggestion, especially at this late stage.

They could randomly add an extra ceremony as long as tgey aren't renting the hall out for conferences the day immediately after graduation . Regardless, noone has had suggested they don't have a deadline at all.

I was pointing out the fact it’s not all booked up hence backing up @Pikachu150 s post

Thank you all so much for all your messages and your words of support. There are many helpful suggestions for the University which I hope they will look at. There seem to be a number of the Uni Admins on this thread so I hope they will communicate some of this to the relevant people. The Uni still has time to do something to sort this out. My daughter won't be the only disappointed student looking at her huge debt and feeling mistreated. There are suggestions that could work. I hope we hear something soon.

But you don't know if they have scheduled a big clean after all the ceremonies or have maintenance work on the hall scheduled for that week. No listed events doesn't mean it's sitting idle.

@mildlyfried I think you could go to the press with this. I've been in universities as a lecturer for decades and have never heard of this situation. She has incurred a lot of debt for this and it's not fair. She applied by the deadline. Tickets should be a given. I would make some noise.

Thankyou SisterMidnight. That is a good suggestion.

A friend of my sons didn’t get the dates with his cohort and he definitely wasn’t alone either
This was Not at Lancaster

I am not sure that the lancaster university apologists actually work there or in universities tbh. Most academics i know would be the first to agree with you about this.

Rather than making predictions about how many students want to attend graduation, they could ask them. Then they could make plans based on that.

Which is what they did but the OP’s daughter didn’t respond.

Others know because what the OP is saying now is not what she said at the time on the Lancaster University Parents facebook group. Of course neither version is necessarily correct. Children who have made mistakes aren't always completely honest about the course of events.

Anyway the thread has been informative.

If I hear of students who are going to Lancaster or thinking of applying, I would inform them about the need to get in early for their graduation. Or they may choose to apply to one of the many institutions that has less of a Ticketmaster approach to their students’ graduation.

Plus it isn't another 2-3000 people without places. There are 8 undergraduate colleges and they average 500-600 students per year group. So circa 4000-5000 in total. Typically each college has at least two ceremonies so on average 270 students per ceremony with two guests permitted. Many overseas students don't attend graduation since it means coming back to the UK. Others don't pass their degree, others have jobs starting immediately or are travelling.

There are spare tickets available for a number of the July ceremonies.

Edited to add that despite the OP claiming that lots of people on here must work for Lancaster I doubt thats the case. I certainly don't. The OP is doing exactly what she said she intended to do on the facebook group (which is run by parents not by the University) which was to cause as much trouble for the university as possible.

NOPE they aren’t automatically allocated a ticket - as many many posters here, incl those with DC at the same university have stated. It operates on a first come first served basis. It staes this in the fisrt and latter reminder emails. No guarantee of a place at ‘any’ ceremony of choice only at those which still have spaces available - she may have responded by the ‘hard deadline’ - but she did not respond in time to ensure there were actually any places left. This has been explained above. If she wanted to graduate with her firends, she should haev coordinated with them and signed up/booked on the same day/as promptly as they did.

I do actually give up now.

OP has stated quite clearly that her dd responded before the deadline. She just didn't win the first come first served scrum.

So what did OP say happened on the Facebook group?

Fine, you can give up. My children went to different universities. My friends’ children went to different universities. It was never a problem. If you didn’t take up the offer of a ticket they went into a pool for people on a waiting list for extra tickets, which I used for extra family members. There are always people who can’t/dont want to use them. It’s a sad state of affairs when Lancaster can’t accommodate its graduates who’ve paid a fortune to study there.

The Facebook story won't take long.... I posted basically what have done here. Parents were shocked as they are here. One poster here said she saw the post. I was swiftly told that comments wound be switched off. I was subsequently blocked from the group and it seems my post has been deleted. I wasn't going to say any of this. I feel the Uni Admins are trying to stop this story getting out.