How likely is it that DS will have to repeat second year?

[AngieBolen]

DS did badly in his exams in January- he had some sort of flu/coughing bug and couldn't find the exam room initially, although did eventually find it and took the exam feeling stressed and rubbish and did very badly. He may as well not have turned up.

He had to take an open exam during lockdown and failed by 5%. He doesn't think they'll let him move on to his final year and he'll have to retake his second year. He's sorted out accommodation for next term and seems happy to go along with repeating the year if that's the university's decision.

How likely is it he'll have to repeat the year? I didn't go to uni and neither did DH, so we don't know how it works. It seems an expensive option, but I don't want him to drop out.

Wow, thank you for all the advise.

I had no idea about the possibility of resists, and have looked up the regulations so a massive thank you for that.

I'm pretty sure DS will be aware of all of that and will be reading his emails. I think he's presenting me with the worst case scenario (I've no idea why but both my DSs do this to me) and probably fully plans to resit the exam (I will try to broach this with him but I'm away atm) This was the first time he spoke to me in three months despite being in the same house, so I didn't feel able to ask too many questions. There's is definitely a mental health issue, but I don't know what or how to address it, but that's a different thread. The communication issue is between me and DS rather than DS and the university. None of us are under any Illusion he will go into an office based career and become a high earner or ever pay off his student loan but he does enjoy the subject and I'm sure he'll be able to put what he's learned to good use.

Apparently DS told DH he did badly in the exam but as he's done so well on the non-exam work it's all fine. .

Most posts have been super helpful, so thank you!

Hi OP, It sounds like your son's degree is in a 2 semester system with assessments in January and June. If it's like my son's degree you do 6 units until January and 6 in June. You mention he did well in coursework. If his degree is mainly based on coursework and he had only took the two exams, he failed he could still do fine if he has done well on the coursework units. He would probable have August resits with those results capped at 40%. If he had several January exams and several on-line ones in June and scraped past the other January ones and his overall grade average is poor he may be better off contacting the university's Academic Services to resit the year. Unis also have different rules on whether you need to pass everything to progress, some allow you to fail one or two non-essential units if you pass the core ones well. Others require you to pass everything. I would have thought it's too late for extenuating circumstances for January. I hope your son manages to get some advice, most Unis have a student services team to help them with such things,

He may need to pass all units to progress to the next yeat, in which case he needs to check if he needs to register to do resits as the deadline could be very soon.

At my university the rules are different this year because of Covid. We are allowed an uncapped resit for any module that we feel we underperformed on in Semester 2. Literally any module - I had 81% in one module and still could have resat. The deadline to say we want to resit is this Friday, and we've all had meetings with our personal tutors to discuss our options.

Trying to study over the past few months has been tough - dealing with the change to online teaching, changes to assessment methods, having to move back home if you are in university halls. Don't underestimate the stress that the uncertainty has caused students.

people are unwell for exams all the time. If you're confident in the subject matter and well enough to be there in person it shouldn't render you doing so bad as to get less than 40%- did he apply for extenuating circumstances

If you are ill you are ill, and of course it can significantly affect your performance. However, I agree he should have applied for special consideration but given you can never get a GP's appointment even pre-covid, he probably didn't bother because he wouldn't have had the evidence.

Thank you for all the advice so far.

DS retook the exam. I don't know how he did in it (should he know by now?) but he still seems keen on retaking the second year anyway (I'm getting this third hand through relative he's staying with over the summer). I think he's sacred of leaving uni, so retaking a year puts off having to face real life and getting a job.

Does anyone know if they would let him retake second year if he didn't need to?

Does anyone know if they would let him retake second year if he didn't need to?

That wouldn't be allowed at any of the universities I've worked at, but I wouldn't want to claim this as a universal rule.

Thank you- I was wondering if universities might allow it this year to bring in more funds after losing overseas students.
I don't mind either way, although I would like him to have a degree under his belt at some point, even if he chooses not to use it.

He wouldn't necessarily know the outcome yet. But I would be very surprised if he was permitted to retake the year unless there were exceptional circumstances and - even then - I would only expect a repeat year to be granted if the student had had a real train wreck of a year i.e. very poor attendance throughout, multiple failed modules. Otherwise it would be considered to be granting academic advantage.

I would be VERY surprised if any UK university was willing to permit a repeat year just to bring in an extra year of fees. That is beyond dodgy.

I don't know why DS is living elsewhere and not talking to you about it, but if there's anything you can do to get him to open up then I would recommend that. Guesses from strangers on the internet are never going to be as reliable as him giving you direct info. (But then again he's an adult and doesn't HAVE to tell you anything... although if he's expecting you to support him financially then I would say there's a moral duty to keep you informed.)

@AngieBolen

Thank you- I was wondering if universities might allow it this year to bring in more funds after losing overseas students. I don't mind either way, although I would like him to have a degree under his belt at some point, even if he chooses not to use it.

They couldn’t do that. The degree regulations are set in stone and it would be the work of months if not years to revise them.

Your ds needs to act. (In fact, he should have acted far earlier, but no point fussing about that now, I suppose.)

Do the university have any record of his ill health? The special considerations board will probably already have met so it may well be too late to get any acknowledgment for that.

As for the resit, he needs to move quickly on that. It takes time to write a new exam paper, have it printed and organise a resit. There are set periods within which this can happen.

His first action must be to contact the university. He needs to send an email to his personal academic tutor cc:ing the module convenor and the exams officer (if he doesn't know who the latter two are, that should be listed on the university website), explaining his exact situation and asking for guidance. He needs to find out from the office what his mark was in that second exam. He needs to start sending emails NOW.

Also no point in either him or us trying to second-guess the exam regulations at his university: in some places you are allowed to progress into 3rd year if your overall mark is 40% or above, even if you have failed an individual module. Let him contact his university!