Should my DD drop out of uni? Opinions please

[MollyH1]

For context, My DD is currently studying English Literature at a Russell group uni . She's been fairly unhappy all year, which has been difficult to see, but she's truly settled in now and enjoying herself a bit more. Course wise, she's just received her latest essay results, and they show she is working at the level of a 2:2. My DD thinks this is the end of the world, and is now discussing dropping out this summer, at the end of her first year. Is a degree at 2:2 level 'worth it'?
My encouragement is that she will get better throughout the next two years, and she will hopefully gain a 2:1, if she doesnt' a 2:2 is still great. Is my DD correct in her thinking that a 2:2 isn't worth it? I really think she should stay. She works very hard - I think she's is overthinking her marks as she spends a lot of time working and tries her best...maybe she's thinking this is the best she can do. It didn't help that her essay marks were lower than last term. Help me persuade her to stay!

I would expect the DD to know what's average for her own institution and I get the feeling a 2.2 is a bit less than average for hers, hence her upset.

The problem is, her view of 'average' might be skewed because students who do well are more likely to tell the world - especially if they didn't work very hard for it (I've overheard a lot of 'wrote it the day before and only went and got a first!' boasting, a lot of which I think is untrue). The students who are least likely to talk about their marks are the ones like OP's DD - trying hard but not quite getting to where they want to be. I've spoken to a lot of students who have been convinced they are bottom of the class and are very surprised when I tell them that, actually, their grade was dead-on the average or even above it. Similarly, lots of students think everyone else in the room feels more confident and is better than them at making verbal contributions - as the tutor, I'm not taken in by confident-sounding waffling on a text they often haven't actually read, but other students often are.

OP, others have brilliantly outlined why this is not a disaster.

I would suggest that your daughter needs to develop some resilience - 2:2 is a good mark in 1st year and it sounds like she is throwing her hands up and wanting to give up immediately, which would worry me. I wouldn't encourage her to see the value in her own work and her own thinking, even if she is not getting top grades right now. In a way this is exactly the difference between a level and degree work in English lit - original thinking and independence vs cramming and box-ticking to get a 100% mark.

What books does she love? Which bits of the course have interested her most? How does she feel her mind has been expanded by the course so far?

I would hope that she would love the course and feel changed as a person by it by now - it's never nice not to get a top mark but she needs to find the value of her course for herself first of all, and not entirely depend on that mark for a feeling of intellectual growth & worth.

Her lecturers will be looking for this independent, rigourous thinking about books and theory, which is not possible if the course is approached entirely as a box ticking exercise to get the top mark and then move on. If she can develop this independent spirit - listen to her lecturers but argue with them about the topic sometimes if she has a good thought about it! - that will stand her in good stead for her degree, for any future career and for the rest of her life. If she can carry these skills, the ability to have interesting thoughts and conversations about books, with her for the rest of her life - I cant think of any greater gift for a young person.

Correction - I WOULD encourage her to...

If you get a B in a mock at school, your predicted grade can go from A* to A/B (which is a bit mad, but there you go). If you get a 2:ii at university, your average might go down, but it doesn't have any bearing on what you might be capable of later. They are used to seeing every result as hugely significant, and cannot take on board the idea that it's okay not to do so well sometimes.

But that's the point of first year - not that it 'doesn't count' but that you have a time when you learn what works and what doesn't, take risks, knowing that a lower mark doesn't matter in the bigger scheme of things. Then when it does start to count, they should be in a better place to do themselves justice.

But schools don't do so well as conveying the idea that the work is for you, and you learn from it - it's so target-focussed (not schools' fault!) that every single mark massively matters, and that takes some paradigm-shifting thinking to comprehend.

Oh yes. Student reports of their own performance to others are not always reliable.

And the students do almost seem to group themselves by ability/attitude to work. So you see students panicking because they ‘only’ got 72 but their friends got higher marks. Those students don’t realise that their marks are really high compared to the class as a whole because they don’t know the ones who got 25. Sadly many ofthe ones who got 25 all seem to have been in the pub with each other, rather than in classes, and have convinced themselves that no one did well and it was ‘impossible’ to pass.

I always try to give class feedback that shows the overall distribution of marks as well as general comments (in addition to individual feedback). But that doesn’t mean the students process this rationally. Undergraduate degrees can be very emotionally fraught in all sorts of ways.

She really needs to not be so hard on herself. I've seen students fail their first year and come out with higher than 2:2. She needs to speak to her tutor and also student services. Universities like schools having Learning Support Departments. She can get support in refining her essay writing skills.
It might also be worth having a good chat with DD to make that English Lit is the right subject for her.

Death to the passive voice! Stuff didn't just happen, you did it, didn't you?

The passive is about showing that the process is more important than who did it (the agent). It highlights objectivity as the study usually has to be reproducible or withstand criticism.

Except that the supposed objectivity of the process is largely mythical. It does matter that you did it, especially in the humanities and social sciences.

I have a 2:1 in English literature from a Russell Group uni. If she can choose get operations next year, focus on stuff that is more established/canon with lots of criticism published. That definitely worked for me.
A 2:2 is definitely not the end of the world, just ask my brother who is a financial high flyer earning 6 figures (in a part of the country where this is a fuckload of money).

I think the cat/50 cats/Mona Lisa analogy above it perfect. In fact, I am with ssah permission going to steal it for when I career change.

No problem, I can even send your the powerpoint.

As top A level students, they often aren't used to not being one of the best.

Having worked in a hospital with many many Oxbridge grads (100% for what were then called 'house officers') it is a huge shock, they have come from top A levels, to do medicine at a top uni and then they are the bottom of the pile.

sashh to state the obvious, only one of around 150 in the intake at each of Oxford and Cambridge medical schools is actually 'bottom of the pile'.

I assumed that sashh meant that they’d been used to being a the top at school and university and found it difficult adjusting to being right at the bottom of the hierarchy in a hospital.

I assumed that in the context of the conversation about 'pecking order' and grades at uni sashh was talking about how the Oxbridge medical students found the level of competition at uni/ medical school a culture shock. Everyone is bottom of the pile when they start work, so that would be a fairly irrelevant comment.

ssash I would love that. I'll Pm you.

I don't think it is just medics.

Good mathematicians are used to getting 90%+ in school exams, as in being able to do almost everything on a paper. Yet at University 70% is good.

Bizarrely being at a super-selctive school can be an advantage when starting University, as you have few expectations of being at the top of a peer group so can be pleasently surprised. It is clear thoguh that for others, adapting from being towards the top to somewhere in the middle can be difficult.

We give our students progress tests on the previous term's work when they come back after each vacation. I remember once after the first one, a student telling me that it was the first time he had done an exam where the questions weren't basically things he had done before, just with different numbers. It was quite a shock!

If the expectations are made clear, then most of them adjust, but it isn't always easy.

It was actually one of the reasons for sending my children to super-selective schools, having seen how hard some first year undergraduates find it to suddenly be in the bottom of the pack. Only problem is, they have to make that adjustment when they are only 11 instead - but at least they still have mum handy!

I got some poor marks in my first year. Esp in compulsory modules I hated. There was much more choice after that. I ended up with a first. A 2.2 would not be the end of the world anyway would it?

irregularegular, not a problem if they started at an academic prep, so can observe kids at 11+ who used to be top table at primary making the adjustment to being average.

DS is probably placed higher on a well regarded and very mathematical Masters course than he was in his Yr 2 maths set. The adjustment at University can be two fold. First that you might no longer be top of the heap. But also the different approach. DS found University level maths far more interesting than school maths, whilst friends with the same grades appear to have reached their ceiling in terms of concepts and complexity. I would imagion the same holds true for humanities and the different challenge of University level work.

My DD doing 2nd Eng Lit at Russell Group uni. Struggling with essay marks and worried she will only get a 2.2.
Went in with high A Levels but the marks she is getting don't reflect that.
About to do 5 exams so she if she can pull it out of the bag this year.
Might be same uni!
She asks for advice and tries to follow it but the next essay something else is wrong. She tries so hard and is frustrated.

DS is probably placed higher on a well regarded and very mathematical Masters course than he was in his Yr 2 maths set

That might also be because he has become relative stronger as he and his peers have grown up. Rankings are not fixed. I know someone who is now a Professor, who was initially in the 3rd level school as a child in the Netherlands (they have or had the equivalent of grammar, secondary modern, but there are 3 levels and it is sometimes possible to move between them, but you lose a year)

But you are also right that the nature of the work is very different and plays to different strengths. I also know a girl who apparently was the first to get 100% in all her GCSEs. She was a fairly mediocre Oxford undergrad.

My Dd is just finishing 1st year at her (RG) Scottish Uni. She's doing fairly well (60s) in her main subject (a language) but failed miserably in the first semester in her optional courses with a total of 13%! She dropped the subject and had to take extra subject in Semester 2.

She's never failed an exam in her life but she found the subject incredibly difficult to get her head around and found the pace of learning so fast. I'm sure she'll be fine in her replacement subject, but it's a far cry from 'I must have an A' at school, to 'I only need 40%'!

It's definitely a big step for them.

I think it's early days to talk of dropping out...my dd got fairly mediocre A levels, ( she's dyslexic) but got into a top 30 Uni ( not RG)... middling results in 1st and 2nd year ( MA at Scottish Uni , so 4 yr course)... by the time she was in 3rd year and doing options she really she wanted to she was sailing and regularly getting 2:1 and the occasional 1st
Finally graduated 2:1 joint honours and then went to RG uni to do her MSc and hasn't looked back...some students take a bit longer to get going but once they find their niche, they can fly

I’m a first year law student and I a 2:2 in a subject I’m not confident in. My lecturer assured me 2:2s are normal at this stage and they expect us to work up as we progress through our degree

Hi! I am a private tutor who works with students like your daughter and have years of experience teaching humanities at university level.

Don’t give up! A 2:2 can easily be turned into a 2:1 with a bit of work. I’m afraid I’m not a big fan of sitting back and waiting for it to ‘click’ but there is lots she can do to help.
Firstly, she needs to identify what her main problem areas are. To do this she needs to find a copy of the mark scheme (which is usually online or she can ask her tutor) and read it very carefully. She next needs to gather together all and any written feedback she has and compare it to the mark scheme. Are there any common issues?
A good indicator can be to look at where in the 2:2 she is. A student who frequently gets 58 is could be falling down on something fairly simple, for example referencing, which is keeping their grade down. A mark towards the bottom or middle could (although not always!) indicate an issue with structure or focus.
One thing that jumps out at me is that you said that her work tends to be on a theme. This is unlikely, even at first year. There should be a key question to answer or discuss. A common problem that keeps students at 2:2 even if they are hardworking is not answering the question or having no line of argument. For example, let’s imagine a class is asked to write an essay exploring the historical context of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Often one finds that some students will write an essay which fully outlines the plot of the book and then write extensively about the history leading up to that point, but doesn’t put the two together and say how they are linked. This takes practice but once a student understands it, grades can improve quickly.
Anyway, hope that is helpful but tell her not to be discouraged. With a bit of work she can soon get her grades up.

I was getting low marks in my first year . Some firsts for my work in final year

She can easily pull her grades up. If she is enjoying it id say no way should she drop out