Parent working at the Uni their child attends?

[Hippopotaperson]

DD is a few years off uni yet but she’s already showing interest in a particular course/subject. It’s a particularly strong area for the university where I work so she’d be looking at courses there. It’s an expensive area to live in so she may live at home and study where I work. Does this seem doomed to fail? Has anyone a similar experience?

Yes, we are in London so maybe that’s a really specific situation? We’re surrounded by wealth and families having the expectation that their children will go to university and live away from home. Where we are its not a racial divide but it’s certainly class or money based.

I would very much hope that it would have been some not lots. Every new starter at the hospital I worked at in the early 2000s had the principles of the Data protection act 1998 drummed into them, and any other organisation handling personal data should have been ensuring their staff were fully aware of the DPA also.

Yes,@mondaytosunday , one of the perks of teaching in many American universities, particularly the well known private ones such as Ivy League+, is free tuition for your DC (if they are admitted).

However the Biden administration is currently investigating legacy admissions (children of alumni) and the admission of faculty children at Harvard. These groups have particularly high success rates with their applications and the reasons why are not clear. As affirmative action (contextual admissions) comes to an end, it is thought that if this is ‘affirmative action for rich kids’ it is particularly unfair.

It is very common for London kids, whether rich or poor, to study in London. Part is racial/religious. For example back in the day when I was at LSE plenty of students came from North London Jewish families who were expected to live at home till they were married. Similarly London based Europeans often don't have a tradition of moving away for University.

It is also pragmatic. London offers an enormous range of courses, some of which are as good if not better than their Oxbridge equivalents. If you are serious about your subject it is very hard to reject a place at LSE or Imperial to have the chance of living away. Add in the cost saving and the scope for p/t work and it can become a no brainer.

One common approach is to have a first year in halls and then move back home. It provides a useful resetting of expectations for both parents and student as hopefully the student returns with more independence and life skills. By second year their peers are pretty scattered and more social life happens on campus. It was nice, even when DS was in halls. We saw about as much of him as we would have done if he were elsewhere but instead of coming back for weekends he would pop home for to pick up a parcel and stay for dinner, or we would meet for a coffee when I was in that part of town. (My dad used to take me for lunch and was always astonished at how much I would eat!) DS even invited his friends over for a post exam BBQ which meant we got to meet them.

As others have said this is not so easy - I cannot even access the marks of students in my own Department unless I teach, mark or moderate the specific module they have taken.

Any colleague who has had a child study in the same department cannot have any involvement woth the marking process and cannot attend Board of Examiner meetings where their children's marks are discussed - even though they are anonymised for these meetings.