Preparing to go to university - the admin!!

[TheThirdOfHerName]

Most 18 year olds are capable of sorting out their pre-university admin, but mine needs support (due to dyspraxia & anxiety). Because he needs my help, I've found out quite how much admin is involved.

He started the process with a list of tasks, e.g. apply for university, apply for student finance, apply for DSA, apply for accommodation, apply for a student bank account. Initially it sounded straightforward, but each task is actually made up of many subtasks, most of which require different logins, passwords and security validations.

Applying for accommodation was supposed to be done completely online, but at three different stages of the process the system would not let him access the next step and he had to sort it out with phone calls and emails.

This morning he completed the online registration for his course. There were six stages to the process, including several "Computer says no" moments along the way. Luckily the website accepted the third ID photo he tried to upload. He couldn't access the final stage until the system had accepted his responses for the first five stages.

I often see posters comment that in their day, students did all this independently, and query why modern 18 year olds need help. It's true that when I was a student I handled the admin myself, but everything wasn't so bloody complicated back then!

@Georgethe Hippo - think you wil find that income tax in Scotland is now slightly higher than RUK. I am paying around £100 more per annum a than if I were living south of the border. The higher public spending in Scotland is also because of the higher costs of providing public services ( such as waste collection) in rural areas with low population density.

TwatasaurusRex
Thank you, that makes me feel a bit better.

Indeed - we still subsidise the Scots so in a sense we ensure they have free university education (the twins are costing me £150k over 3 years and I pay a huge amount of income tax). It makes us very much a disunited kingdom and is the wrong way to go but we have set that path. It just leads to division and difference.

Even Wales now has a different land tax - not stamp duty land tax any more. HMRC are finding it complicated too as Scotland has different income tax and some people have a home in Scotland and England and indeed jobs in both places. What a mess we make of tax and also student funding in the UK.

Sorry to de rail further OP but just wanted to add that everything in Scotland costs more. Our heating bills, council tax, travel, petrol, food etc are all more expensive. We also live 2 to 2 and a half years less but I don't hear anyone wanting that spread South of the border, or our high incidence of MS due to lack of sunlight. It's also much harder for a Scottish student to get into a Scottish uni than it is an English student. As the fees are fixed at a lower rate, universities limit the spaces available to home students. For example in the recent clearing event most courses had no spaces available for Scottish candidates but did have space for English or ROW applicants. I,d gladly pay for prescriptions.

Dd2 is safely in France for a semester at a French university, and despite filling in many many forms before she went, there's been so much more admin on arrival! Two hours with 3 different people to get her room key. Over an hour the next day for the administrative registration. Still hasn't met her tutor or completed her academic registration, confirmed modules etc. This morning she arrived (fortunately early) for French classes (they have classes all week before term starts properly to basically 'set' them) and her name wasn't on any of the class lists - one document hadn't been uploaded! Sorted very quickly, phew, but not good for her stress levels. This is a really organised young woman (e.g. she has left us a folder containing copies of all her important documents, contact numbers at her home and abroad unis, etc) and this has all taken days of her time. I'm hoping Germany next semester is simpler!

And as said above, student accounts are for the extra benefits, not compulsory. My girls both opened student accounts in different banks to their existing 'teenage' accounts, and have kept both open.