DS wants to switch course or leave, but Uni says no!

[SwitcherMum]

Can anyone help and advise?

DS started uni two weeks ago doing a single honours humanities course (e.g. English (but not this)) He likes the uni and his flatmates etc but hates parts of his course and wants to switch to a joint honours in the same department (e.g. English & Film).
At the beginning of term they were told if they wanted to request any course changes this had to be before week 6, so this week after discussion with us he emailed, using the formal channels (admissions) requesting the change.
They said NO, the course is full. No discussion. He did ask why not and their answer was flakey - about numbers in rooms due to covid etc. However the change would only mean he changed TWO modules this year, and they other subject has smaller classes. There are no labs or equipment involved - just lectures and seminars!

He's gutted and now says he will leave rather than continue with single honours and I think he means it.
He has a SpLD (dyslexia) and part of his reasoning is that the joint course would be more manageable for him (for various reasons I won't outline here).

Is there anything he/(we) can do or people we can talk to? Has he got any grounds to appeal etc?
He hasn't met his personal tutor yet and she didn't reply to his email asking about changing course. He tends to act rashly when stressed and I am so worried he is just going to jack it all in.

If the course is full it is full. They will have turned down people ie. made no offers and they will have had people with missed grades on results day that they turned away because it was full with people who made the grades. They can't magic up places.

Op if he is feeling overwhelmed due to the impact of his dyslexia and the increased demands of studying at undergraduate level then a change of course may not necessarily help. Has he applied for DSA? It is possible to have weekly 1:1 sessions which could be used to help him to organise his workload.

Look at his university website and work out how their support systems work.Find our what they call them . At our place we have academic advisors and also student support coordinators , they are often your best best if you want to change course . We also have a central advice desk where they direct you to the right person,or to the right form or process to complete for most requests .

I think it is very poor support to not allow a student to change course in the second week of term ( assuming he meets the entry criteria). Saying a course is full in September is nonsense ( with the exception of things like medicine) as there is always a lot of people not turning up or dropping out in the first month or so The minimum they can do is put him on a waiting list in case someone drops out before the hard deadline for enrolment ( usually in October sometime). Alternatively they could suggest some other options. It is pretty poor to just say no without talking to him and at a minimum trying to address his concerns about the course , which others have said may settle down in time

It sounds as if the Joint Hons. English & Film course is more popular that 'just' English, and that the Joint course is full.

In that situation, I can see that a student may prefer but be unable to secure a place on the Joint Hons. course, and accept English hoping to change. The standard might be higher for Joint Hons, so some students may not have been offered the Joint Hons anyway.

I would suggest that his best chance is to do brilliantly in first year exams. and then ask to change. There is usually a bit of movement around then anyway, so his chances may be better.

Good luck

I’m finding this so stressful as DS is stressed and emotional when he calls and it’s so hard when I don’t know how to help him This resonates so strongly with me - this was me two years ago with DD. I tried everything to persuade her to try and stay (reasoning as other have on here that it was too soon to know she hated it, that there must be someone to talk to who could sort it out etc etc) It just seemed unthinkable that after all the effort of applying, accepting, getting the grades, sorting out accommodation, moving her there etc that she should come back home after such a short time. On reflection, what I should have said is “See if you can sort it out, but if not it’s not a problem if you want to leave and reapply - it’s up to you. It’s not a big deal.” It would have saved her (and us) a huge amount of unnecessary distress, it’s what happened in the end and it was fine. Indeed she learned more from that false start than any amount of university careers counselling and advice could ever have taught her. If he can’t sort it out, it’s not the end of the world indeed it could be the start of something even better.

He’s missed a lecture and seminar this week because he said he ‘just couldn’t cope with it’

That's sad to hear. I wonder if he is better off taking a year out and really deciding in advance what he wants to study or do?

It is very difficult to move onto a more popular course. There are not an infinite number of places and it also would be unfair to those who had not been offered a place.

Reading prospectuses several mentioned that applying for less popular subjects and then hoping to swap once in was frowned upon.

Does he have DSA in place and is he on the radar of the support services. They tend to be very busy and booked up so try and engage them for guidance.

You think they reason for saying no - the course being full - is flakey?

applying for less popular subjects and then hoping to swap once in was frowned upon.

And risky as there's no guarantee you'll get in.

Just to clarify a few things:

• he didn't apply with the intention of switching courses when he arrived, this is something that he has decided since arriving and talking to people on the other course. He deferred entry and took a gap year so it's now nearly two years (and a pandemic!) since he applied. They do change their minds about things at this age.

He described the initial response from the admissions team as 'flakey' but he really meant a bit vague and unclear. He has ASD/dyslexia and takes things VERY literally so when he asked why he couldn't join the course they said due to limitations on numbers in lecture theatres and he said he'd be happy to do remote lectures (they already exist) but I think they thought he was being flippant and it sounds like they fobbed him off with a kind of "you just can't" rather than explaining about seminar groups/ marking etc.
The situation wasn't helped by the tutors telling the students that if they wanted to change course then it had to be before Week 6 - setting up an expectation that this was a possibility - again, he has interpreted this literally. Perhaps they said it might not be possible, but he missed this bit.

Anyway he had an email from the Head of Department saying sorry, but it's simply not possible. He can take one of the other course modules as an option in Year 2 &3 so this may be a partial solution.

His tutor still hasn't replied and he doesn't feel he knows any other member of staff well enough to talk to.
He is registered with the DSA/Wellbeing team but although he emailed them last week about 1to1s there seems to be an endless back and forth of form emails about sending dates etc.
No human contact!

He's going to think things through over the weekend and hopefully come to a decision.
We think he is liable for 25% fees if he withdraws after Sunday though, although DH says he also says he thought he saw something about a withdrawal date being able to be 'backdated' by up to four weeks, whatever that means?

I am absolutely exhausted. It's been such a long haul to get him to this point (long story!) and now it seems it's all coming crashing down.

I do feel for you. What a crappy situation after all your and his effort and build up.

Is there a head of year or senior tutor on his course that he could get in touch with? I think he really needs to talk to somebody experienced and reassuring. It can take ages for disability support to be put in place, so I would manage his expectations about that.

As @LillianGish says, taking the year out and reapplying feels drastic but it can be the best option. I am an academic and I can think of at least three colleagues who started on one degree programme, and then restarted the following year in a different subject or institution (and are now teaching it at university!). So although it seems huge now, you may well look back and think it was absolutely the right thing to do.

@DameAlyson

their answer was flakey - about numbers in rooms due to covid etc.

That's not flakey, it's factual. Numbers in rooms are limited.

Even in normal times, meeting or teaching rooms/public venues will have maximum permitted numbers, for safety reasons, and maximum numbers are significantly reduced this year.

Yes, exactly. Plus the workload of staff marking work and supporting student learning per module.

Plus in our place the A level grades have put extreme pressure on student numbers.

Thaf does sound exhauating OP and tbh sometimes people who know the system just don't remember how difficult it can be to navigate.

If I were him, I'd use the open channel with the HoD. I'm an ex-HoD and dealt with loads of stuff like this. I'd say very nicely that he is struggling and cannot raise his personal tutor and it is taking a long time to get a meeting set up. He cam ask to see them F2F. In spite of what the media tells you, the vast majority of the sector is back F2F incl student services.

You've had some good advice OP. I just wanted to add that he will have been sent programme and departmental handbooks which tell him how to access different kinds of support and who to contact about what. Maybe ask him to forward these on to you in case he's finding them a bit overwhelming and missing something.

He'll also very likely have access to some kind of online platform with lots of info on (probably referred to in the handbook). I wouldn't usually advocate that he gives you his login and would usually say it's up to students to be adults, but if a learning difference is preventing him fully engaging with the content, that might be helpful.

Between those resources you might be able to a) unpick what it is that he 'hates' and b) find out what the correct routes to support are.

Feel free to ignore if those suggestions aren't helpful. It's just that I spend hours compiling what I hope are clear, comprehensive handbooks, and then I spend hours repeating the same information as I answer questions from students who've not looked at them!

DS began to "hate" his course towards the end of year 2. He stayed in his student flat over the summer - we hardly saw him, hardly heard from him (he was actively avoiding us). A few weeks into year 3 he told us he'd withdrawn from the course. This was a shock to us. He did get a temporary job, but otherwise took the rest of the year out. And the one after that ... while reapplying for a similar but different course. He got in - he had to go back to year 2 again - and eventually graduated, 7 years after starting.

It was stressful for all of us at the time, but 3 years on, we can see it was the right thing for him to do.

I agree with asking for sight of "class handbooks" or whatever the online resources are and trying to work out yourself how to navigate the help systems. It can be very tricky if you don't know the institution's terminology.

Good luck.

Sorry, just another thought from me. It might be worth going through what emails he's had (again, not something I'd usually advocate). It may well be that there are crossed wires such as: person X from the disability team is sending emails saying "click here to book your study skills support" while he's emailing person Y asking for that very thing. Once you add neurodiversity plus institution-specific terminology plus general information overload, it's easy for info to get lost in translation.

As I mentioned, I would usually say he should sort this himself but given the learning difference and the time pressure, it might be helpful for you to see the info for yourself.

Even in normal times numbers are limited - some courses eg film as it's your example, rely on seminars in smaller groups and they can't just magic up another teacher, and seminar rooms tend to be smaller eg holds 12-16

he didn't apply with the intention of switching courses when he arrived, this is something that he has decided since arriving and talking to people on the other course.

People here aren't saying that HE did this, but that people do. It was always a thing-I remember being told when I was applying that it had been such a popular idea to apply to Oxford to read RE (70% acceptance rate) then swap to English (about 25% acceptance rate) that they had a blanket policy that no one could swap that way. The problem is that if people in the past have used that, then your ds will be getting the same reaction as if he had deliberately done it.

Another possibility is to see if there is another course that is less popular that he may be able to swap to, but this year, when things are very oversubscribed in areas I wouldn't guarantee you'll be likely to find one.

@thefelineofthespecies - thanks for your helpful suggestions.
He has already shared his email/login with me, and in fact we had a couple of zoom calls last week where I was helping him work through and prioritize his emails and navigate various uni systems. For students who might be dyslexic/ have other learning difficulties, the uni really don't make life easy with the deluge of information they send, and let other people send. It seems as if every single department/ group/club/society etc is sending 'helpful' welcome emails with massive attachments outlining who they are and what they do and the result is just a barrage of information that has sent him into a blind panic, which rather than working through, he's just switched off from, missing the one or two KEY emails relevant to his course.

I know lots of the resources provided by wellbeing departments are well-intentioned, but I'm afraid a written handbook or powerpoint presentation is likely to the the least accessible for someone like my DS.

The problem is that at the moment he doesn't have course peer group support where he can quickly check things he may have missed or not understood. So for example lat week he was in total meltdown about the fact that supposedly they'd been asked to read a 400 page book before the seminar. He often uses text to speech software and it was telling him it was going to take 26 hours! After doing a bit of digging and rewatching a recording of the end of the lecture it became clear it was actually only the introduction and one chapter!

Does he not also have a mentor privately funded through DSA rather than someone attached to the uni? My son has funding for this. 35 hours worth. Although as yet he has not called to make arrangements to see them but that is a different issue!

@SeasonFinale - he has DSA funding for a study support person - 35 hours and provided by the uni disability/wellbeing team, but like your son, has not yet managed to set this up.
I feel if we can get him through the next few weeks he will be fine, but it is hell right now and he is frustrated and explosive (with me) which is how he becomes under extreme stress .

Get him to head to his Student Guild - there will be people there to support him with this kind of query, with better knowledge of the uni. They’re very used to students in this state