Appealing the grade given for degree help!!

[Pippa000]

Ok I shall try and explain best I can with what dd has told me.
She was given her results for her degree today, she got a 2:2. It was 2 marks off a 2:1. She is very upset and frustrated at the same time, as the breakdown of her result were what she feared, the group module (made up large % of final mark) work was the let down, scored 43 . She said the rest of her modules and dissatation were in the 60's.
Her frustration lies with the group work which she knew from start that the group she was put in would hinder her marks as they consisted of 4 overseas students who's English wasn't up scratch, she does a politics course, dd was the only uk student in her group. There was only so much DD could do to try and correct things plus the guys in her group had lazy work ethics it was hard for her to get them in a group to work together on the project.
At the time she complained about this problem several times to her tutor, it fell on deaf ears he wouldn't at all budge on scoring the work on individual merits rather than as a group.
Now that her results are out she is in bits that she has worked so hard, scored consistently well on all the other modules and the group one has scuppered her results and not reflective of her work. She feels shes wasted 3 years of her life because of been put in a crap group. She rung the univesity up, they said theres nothing she can do as she has passed and it has already been classified.

I didn't go to uni so haven't a clue. Does she have any grounds of appealing, I feel for her as it does seem unfair, since she has been to see her tutor several times about the project to raise her concerns. Any advice welcomed

Thanks you, for reading this so far if you have managed to do so.

Pippa are those just her year 3 grades? How did she do in year 2?
I'm assuming her dissertation was 60 credits, is that right?

It doesn't really matter because it's not as if they have been added up wrong but just to get a sense of what percentage of her degree classification was based on joint work. It seems from what you've said that it is over a quarter of her third year at a minimum which seems incredibly high to me.

Dissitation was worth 30 credits sorry forgot to say

To clarify I expected to be marked against my peers and wasnt which is why I challenged the reviewer. My tutor wasn't happy with the huge decrease in grade.

To the comment about class sizes, it was awful to be in such huge classes. Seminars had 22 students in each one and were held every fortnight. I tried to transfer to another institution in my first year because of this but would have had to take a gap year. We had many students leave in their first year to go to other red bricks or abroad. I would have left too but didn't know better. When I got to my 2nd year it was worse and I often sat on the steps at the back of the lecture hall because there were too many students. my school was supposedly top 10 with my department supposedly #2 in the country for teaching. Now most of the courses are delivered online which is completly counterproductive to attending university. Discussion is performed online and it's very disjointed.

OP it is very stressful and I hope it has been going well. A girl in the year below had an issue similiar to your DD's and the parents supported their Dc suing the university for loss of earnings from the lower classification. She got her 2:1 and many of us got the impression the university was willing to do anything make it go away.

So for each 30 credit module final grades were 64, 64, 60 and 43. Averaging out at just under 58. To be honest I wouldn't hold out too much hope, although agree it's worth trying the appeal route. Her marks don't indicate a solid 2:1 and a blip, they're only scraping, particularly if exams were higher, that indicates her coursework must have been low 2:2 to pull those two modules down.

She must have known how her final classification was going to be calculated and should have spoken up before.

With a paid internship though she has a real chance to prove herself, maybe with the option of a part time MA and this will be nothing more than a hiccup long term.

brrrr, I'm having cold shivers just thinking about group work.

OP, hope your DD feels better soon. It must be very frustrating for her. DS2 does a lot of coursework but is allowed to choose one partner while a further two are randomly allocated. They also report on each member of their group. In a recent piece of work he and his chosen partner got 75% while the other two only just got passes. (I can't remember the actual mark bug I think it was 40%'ish ). To his credit my son and his friend were quite calculating and documented everything. It seems a lot fairer than how your DDs university handles group work.

want - I don't follow ... you already told us you objected to being marked against your peers by the external examiner. Now you're saying you objected to not being marked alongside them?

I don't think you are understanding what the system is for. And I'm not saying that to be an arse. I'm saying it because I think it is really easy to latch onto something and say 'but that is why I didn't get the grade. It wasn't my fault'. And for the OP's DD, I don't think that is helpful.

Maybe she didn't deserve the 2.2. It sounds very stressful. She needs all the feedback she can get, to find out what went on.

Maybe - sorry, OP, I hope you see where I'm coming from - she did deserve the 2.2, because where she thought there was an unfairness (eg., her being marked for the poor English of other students), there was in fact some other issue she didn't realize - such as, she and the whole group misread some vital part of the requirement. If this can be explained, it will set her mind at rest and will mean that, when she is applying for jobs, she can explain she got excellent 2.1 marks (and some first class marks I believe), and came down on a misunderstanding.

If she carries on claiming it was this or that issue of unfairness, when - as with you - it sounds very unlikely - employers will wonder what is going on, and people will think she just has a chip on her shoulder.

With dd she is finding it incredibly hard to get over that being unlucky has got her where she is. Pot luck got her in the worst group, a bunch of lazy, pot smoking pond life it's the best way I can describe them. DD found a posting on her facebook the lazy pond life weed smoker who made dd life hell in her group presentation by not listening to her and not cite the book like dd told him, if he had done and practiced with what he had been told to do they would have not made the big error so kept to the specification thus would have got a better mark, dd would have got her 2:1, well that stupid idiot says he is glad he has failed, means he don't have to go back home yet!!. He obviously have rich parents to pay the fees. If he was my son I would disown him! DH wants to kick 10 balls of s**t out of him he's clearly kicking dd when she's down. Why the hell do people like him go to uni for???

Meanwhile whilst I compose myself dd is going to student union this afternoon. She wants to see if anything can be done or complete a mitigation form for her presentation it's clear the silly guy I mention above never cared to want to pass hence never bothered to turn up to the group meetings for this presentations. She wants to ask student union if her emails to tutor with cries of help and concerns with her failing group, should have been given more attention, be treated with more care and support . Have the tutors followed through their duty properly.
She also wants to know why in her 3rd year it is structured in such way that its heavily reliant on group work the 2; 15 credit module is 100% group work weighted mix of project and presentation the 2; 30 credit core modules is 40% group work weighted, rest is mixed with assessment and exam This isn't so in year 2 only 1 module with group work. So why this much in year 3. This isn't going to change things but she is curious to know why.
DD isn't wanting to gain the extra 2 marks because she is so close. So looking to squeeze some more. This isn't her aim. It's genuinely because she feels she has been incredibly let down by the system that allowed students who clearly had a different aim, werent bothered if they passed or fail allowed to have the power to dictate dd fate and ended up with a 2:2 they had their part to play in all this. This wouldn't happen if they pulled their weight, turned up to meetings when they should, hand in work asked, do the parts of work allocated. It's obvious they didn't try, how Is dd suppose to carry them all?? And why should she??
When bad things happen I always tend to go and look beyond and say maybe the reason this happened could actually be a blessing in disguise. But I'm just not feeling it at the moment with all this for dd. My hope is dd internship at County Council hopefully this is where she's going to turn a corner and put all this behind her. Good or bad. As ever iam grateful for everyone's input and advice. I may not answer to everyone but I feel the help and support you are giving us.

But the module was optional, you say upthread? So I'm not sure her question about the structure of her 3rd Year is pertinent. The structure of a course and the way things are marked is always openly explained, but if your DD took no notice of this information, there's a limit to what can be done.

If she does appeal, beat to stick absolutely to reasons allowed in the regulations.

But as a tutor, looking at that array of marks, the 43 is a blip, but not an extraordinary one, given that her other marks are only just 2, i results.

I feel extremely sorry for the DD but the post sends a cautionary note against opting for a group module where you can't choose your peers. I suspect that as UptheChimney says, the fact that it was optional will most likely cause a real problem in any appeal, along with the fact that her other marks aren't all at the top end of the 2.1s.

Best of luck to her today, pip.

But please do tell her a 2.2 (a high 2.2.?) isn't the end of the world and she will look back on this later and feel able to be proud of her good marks despite the bad one.

I'm a bit late to this so OP I've read your posts but not everyone else's.

From what I gather dd has either taken a 30credit module or 2 x 15 credit modules with a group and scored 43 which has dragged her overall score down and this was in year 2?

Unfortunately the time to appeal this grade was when she took it last year.

I've been to 5 different uni (long story involving changes in career and other things not relevant).

The way things often work is you hand in a piece of work and it is graded, you get that mark but it is provisional. At the end of the year (sometimes the semester) the grades go through a verification process. This will involve a committee at the uni and there will also be someone from a different uni.

This is where grades are finalised and where any mitigating circumstances are taken in to account. At this point the grades are either finalised (can go up or down but rarely do) or the student is given an opportunity to resubmit some work, sometimes you are given an option, eg one module I'd scored A16 (grades were A16 A15 etc down to D5) on an exam but due to illness the written work had not been handed in, in normal circumstances this would mean a max score of D5 but I was given mitigation so my work could be submitted late 'without penalty'.

OK sorry for the ramble, but once a grade has gone through this process it is final.

So dd should have known going in to year 3 that she had 30 credits ie 2 modules at 43% so had to up her game for the final year.

I'm sorry, I know it is unfair when members of the group are like that. I had to do a few group modules, in one we started with 4 in the group, we could never meet as a 4 due to commitments, 1 person left the uni part way through, another contributed zero, hated that we had written a presentation without her and she didn't like it so complained to the head of department, despite the fact we had got a good grade, she then refused to work with the two of us remaining, so we ended up completing it as 2 people.

I tell you (and your daughter) this just to show I've been there and it is unfair.

There is usually a section you have to sign when you hand in to say this is your work, and often you have to give an account of how the group worked, what they did etc -if dd had this, that is when she should have outlined the difficulties.

As for the student posting on social media, saying he is glad, please screen print this and send it to the uni. It will not change dd's grade but it may cause him problems with the uni.

If he is a non EU student also send the screen shot to the boarder agency, he is in breach of his visa regulations.

Oops just had a quick skim - if this unit is in the final year she may be able to apply for retrospective mitigation using the message as evidence that he deliberately failed.

Non EU students need a CAS from the uni, if a student has failed and needs to extend their visa then the uni " is obliged to consider whether attendance and academic progress is satisfactory and assess the student's continued ability to pass the course"

And congratulations to dd oon getting a degree and a good degree at that. I know it feels like everyone and their dog has a degree these days, they don't.

One more thought with her CV/going forward - very important to emphasise that the dissertation was a 64/2:1. That is often just as important as the overall grade (even for students who don't have a single mark that drags them down, the dissertation is the piece of work that represents their individual ability and what they can do when interested in a topic, and when working independently).

upthechimney it's something I did ask dd why did she choose optional modules with group work. Her answer was she really had limited choice all the 15 credits were group work the only 30 credit module was a marketing one, which she didn't want to do its not a direction she wanted to take her degree her degree is government&politics but because the department shares with business faculty she's ended up with more of the latter options dependent on numbers than gov&pol. They keep changing the modules choices year on year. Students think by choosing group options is easier but as dd says it's absolutely not, she much prefers non group ones and always does better where she works on her own. She does have notes and minutes she takes from group meetings and half the time there's never a full team. She sends these minutes and notes to her tutor to raise her concerns but nothing happens. It's always we will have a word with him type response. And to be honest the 2 guys who failed shouldn't have really be let on to do 3rd they scrapped it through one scored 36 ( the pothead pond life!) The other gut got 38 to me that's a fail but for some reason maybe they had mitigating circumstances who knows, (dd thinks not they just lazy gits ) they let them do year 3 much too dd misfortune to have work with them. I have seen some of their work sent to dd. Shocked ugh I can't believe they can use wrtten shoddy text speak language eg " cos this meanz" because this guy doesn't like typing he writes everything on paper. DD is then meant to try decipher and correct his work. I think this is why dd could never get him to send her his work because he's too lazy to type it?? Or go to the library to stick his lap top or maybe he sold his lap top to buy his weed so not got one.
Well if that stupid idiot post any more comments to dd facebook with words to that effect again, that he deliberatley tried to fail. I will personally go and show the official people that need to know about this nut case, even if dd is scared to.

OP I understand your frustration but you're losing my sympathy calling other students, who you have presumably never met, 'pond-life', nut-cases' and 'stupid idiots'. And if they're overseas students threatening to send FB screenshots to UKBA - really? Seriously detach a bit here. Act like an adult.

Sorry titchy I was only referring to that particular guy who has it in for dd at the moment he is literally smug that he has caused so much heartache for her. He is infuriating us with his taunts. Hence me spitting fire, sorry

I agree titchy. I particularly dislike the repeated use of the term 'pond life', it's really pretty revolting and the idea of trying to cause trouble for the student in question with the UKBA is just grim.

I'm afraid your DD should have been addressed the issue about lack of input at a much earlier stage and certainly before the work was awarded its final mark. If the work was so poor it only merited 43 then she must have known something was horribly wrong, especially if she's a 2.1 student. There's a vast gulf between 43 and even 60 in terms of quality of work - it would have been completely obvious when they were handing it in.

Exactly, titchy, and OP, if you think that your DD happened to be in a group with only lazy drug-taking students in her year, you should think again. I could tell you stories about students that would make your hair stand on end.

Your DD needs to be aware, as I said before, that she will get little sympathy if she complains about the unfairness of aspects of an optional module that she should have known about before she decided to take it. She's an adult and she's responsible for her own choices.

She also needs to avoid taking the kitchen sink approach to an appeal. Saying "I'm appealing because there was a procedural error (i.e. I raised this serious problem at the time and it wasn't acted on)" is fine; saying "I'm appealing because of this procedural error and the structure of the programme is unfair and I have these reasons for mitigation and X and Y and Z" doesn't look good. It looks (in my experience) like a student who knows they have a weak case trying to make it stronger by adding lots of of other weak points in to their argument - the overall effect is to make the case look even weaker than it would otherwise.

You should also be aware, as others have said, that any student who could be brought down a classmark by a single module is going to be regarded as a borderline student anyway. So it's unlikely to be regarded by the university as a massive injustice, even though it must feel like it to you. I'm not saying this to be nasty, just to make you aware of how it will be viewed.

Hope your DD gets on well with the SU advice team today.

If part of the lower grade was because someone during a presentation didn't do it properly, even though your DD knew they should have mentioned something, she could have intervened at some point, showing that the knew the subject.
By keeping quiet, she went along with the work presented, so she does deserve the grade.

I've calmed down, taken a chill pill. And apologising profusely my outburst, language I should know better. It was literally because, that particular guy I'm referring to sent a message to dd this morning telling her she hopes she's fails in life and if she can't take failure why live. Its hard for mum (me) just to sit there and stay calm about it seeing his hurtful comments. That's what really infuriated me to give the guy expletives name. Ive Told dd to disable her FB. And of course I'm not going to really go to authority over this guy because although he tells dd he wanted to fail might but then he may have said it just wanting to hurt dd rather it being really true. I don't know since Ive never met the guy.
becca butterfly thank you, dd appointment isn't till late afternoon so ive managed to tell.

I hope it goes (went) okay for her. I hope I worded my pm ok. I was in a massive rush this morning!

Regarding the FB stuff tell her to change her settings so it's friends only (if it isn't) and if it is remove him and declutter it if she doesn't want to disable it.

I am going to be trying my hardest not to get angry and stay calm . DD went to SU to get advice. SU have been very helpful looking at DD circumstances since some look like complaints and others appeals, to which they are dealt with differently. The only thing dd may have grounds of appeal is something to do with how the tutor conducted and carried out procedure of the group project I may be phrasing this all wrong as dd has had to say all this fast as she is in state of distress which I will explain later. SU has said she should have made a formal complaint against the tutor at the time who she raised her concerns about when he failed to act after the 4th time she should have made formal complaints. In which mediation would have resolved the issue, plus she should have made complaints about fellow student, well that's all easier said than done its not dd nature.
So on the way back to the flat the guy who was in dd group project she happen to bump into, dd has to pass his flat before she gets to hers. The guy kicked off at dd and has hit her in the face, obviously dd is scared and distraught she has facial grazing, but she won't call the police DH is going to pick her up. And probably hope not hit the other guy. This is all but a complete utter nightmare. She is with friends at the moment, I am lost for words, angry, upset, livid not enough to express how I feel so Iam going to sign off it could be a while, so I may not answer as I really need to sort all this out. I'm thanking everyone if I don't answer please don't think I'm being ignorant, this all getting a bit too much and too personal. All from doing group work!!

Well, I hope she complains to the police.
She must get help and act when she needs it, not get upset when it's too late.
I hope he gets at least a fright from the police.

Btw, please note that being ignorant means not knowing something, not ignoring people.
And it's a dissertation.
I'd rather know the correct terms, so please don't take it the wrong way.

It might be a good idea for DH to take her to A&E. I appreciate she'll want to get home ASAP but that kind of atrocious behaviour can't be let go and a chat with the police in or after A&E could be empowering, not to mention helping her cause with the powers that be.

I don't think she has to report it, although I am not an expert. I have a feeling anyone can report an assault and DH might like to.

URGENTLY, your DD needs to inform the University. What the other student did is in DIRECT contravention of any decent university's regulations of conduct.

SHE NEEDS TO COMPLAIN -- straight back to the the University: the Student Union and/or the Registry or whatever her university calls the central admin people.

They will take an EXTREMELY dim view of this. It contravenes non-harassment regs, as well as the law of the land. It's assault with grievous bodily harm.

And it will go towards her case that there were procedural irregularities in dealing with the difficulties she reported about the group work. That the tutor did not take sufficient action etc etc as FatherReboola says: Saying "I'm appealing because there was a procedural error (i.e. I raised this serious problem at the time and it wasn't acted on)" is fine

BUT SHE MUST TAKE THIS TO THE UNIVERSITY & THE POLICE