Son missed Y3 re-sits

[pete100]

My son is doing an undergraduate degree in business management at Lincoln Uni, he was/is due completing his final year.

He did great in Y1 and Y2 - both years all modules passed, and showing as passed credits=120 out of enrolled credits=120

Year 3 on the other hand not so good - out of the total 120 enrolled credits, only 45 are passed, 2 are failed and 2 are showing "not yet assessed"

The mini bombshell was dropped that he's missed his chance to re-sit some of the Year 3 modules as was on holiday.

Can anyone explain (in relatively simple terms) how the final grade is calculated ? I've looked on Lincoln Uni website material and it's not so clear.

The averages section in his results shows the following📧
Mean of all module marks - Undergrad Level 1 = 62
Mean of all module marks - Undergrad Level 2 = 57.25
Mean of all module marks - Undergrad Level 3 = 42.8
Median of all module marks (per level) = 42

He's "officially" been told to wait until Sept 2nd for the results of the re-sits, but since he missed those it seems to be irrelevant - will he get a degree and/or final grade for the above or is it likely he'll need to redo the 3rd year ?

He's also going in to speak to the uni support team(s) but seems they're quite uncontactable at the moment as it's summer break.

Thanks for any info :-) at the moment we have no idea how bad or good this is as not sure if it's averaged over all 3 years, or just the last year that counts. and then the grades seem to be 40-49% third, 50-59% is two/two, and 60-69% is two/one ???

He's also going to have to speak to them himself, they probably won't speak to you.

If third year not possible they may offer a less than degree qualification like a diploma etc but you'd have to ask that uni.

Also credit transfer does in exits in UK but not often talked about - the OU or even another closer Uni could be an option but you'd have to research and get in touch - https://credit-transfer.open.ac.uk/

On a slightly more positive note, if he does want to restudy / complete third year, he won't have to redo the 45 credits he's already passed, which will mean he won't have a full year's worth of fees and the workload will be a bit lighter / maybe more achievable.

He has checked out.
Hasn't done any work for a year, whilst knowing this, went on holiday rather than resit ( because he hasn't been going to lectures & has no idea of the course work.
I would say he might as well Jack it in.
& he doesn't get to cone home & slob in-front of his console. (He's been doing this for a year)
He needs a job & pay rent

The students get all this in handbooks and online though maybe intranet

My friends were divided between those who had no idea and those who had tracking spreadsheets from y1 as to what they needed to achieve, who became increasingly called on as people went through their third year…

The key is speaking to him and seeing what has happened. A yp I know got in a mess year 3. He had mental health issues. He couldn’t even open uni emails. He nominated a close family friend to liaise with the uni and it did get sorted but he only owed a couple of modules, his degree was capped as 2.2. They showed transcripts and he’d been an 2.1 student until the spring then had just stopped engaging. His parents only realised something wrong when he didn’t graduate.

@LottieMary My DDs just did their degrees. I didn’t look at anything like this. They knew what they had to do, and to the best of their ability (and inclination) did it. However I did feel the info is not easy for a lay person to understand. A student with his head in the sand has clearly had some difficulties.

Depending where op lives, I’d get him to investigate work and whether there’s any point going back and spending more money. These days a 2:2 doesn’t get you into most grad schemes. So what will be the advantage of this degree? What job will it lead to that he cannot get right now? Doing training on the job might be lots better.

@TizerorFizz So if a weighed average is over 40%, is a third awarded? Is that what 42.8 means?

The weighted average isn't over 40% because he has scores of 0 for 75 of the 120 credits. Even if he'd scored 100% in the 45 credits he passed his weighted average would still only be 37.5%.

I agree it's all complicated. Students are told it, and it's in handbooks and regulations that they are given links to. The problem is that most students wouldn't think to study these in detail unless they are at risk of falling short of what they wish to achieve. We teld to tell students all this stuff right at the start of the course, when they're least likely to take it in.

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Looks like he’s ploughed his final year. Being on holidays when he was due to do resits is pretty unacceptable. It suggests he was not engaged with his studies.

He would have known he was failing third year and would have been given lots of notice about the re-examination period. Students get two goes at passing although the second opportunity is generally capped at 40% which is a bare Pass.

Generally most universities don’t include Year 1 marks in the final degree grade. And generally, most universities will assess for “exit velocity” in some way - we go it by weighting 3rd year results at double their 2nd year results.

An undergrad Honours degree in the UK needs 360 credit points. That is, 120 each year. However, generally universities will allow students to fail 20-30 credit points each year but still progress.

Really, the bar is set pretty low - you need to find out why your son managed to flop even that …

And big caveat - each university does things differently. Which is why I’ve said “generally “. However, all universities publish their degree regulations so you can find out exactly what Lincoln’s degree regs are and what your son will need to do. I expect he’ll need to repeat his 3rd year. But it also sounds like he’s disengaged - missing the resit period is pretty stupid - or distressed - behaviour.

In this case he could have potentially got the 50% (averaged mean over years 1 & 3) for a 2:2, but then falls well short on the credits required, and now the missed re-sits to try and address that, so that's not happening.

It's very unlikely that Year 1 would be included in his degree average grade. It looks like he doesn't have enough credit points at 3rd year to earn a degree.

He needs to book to meet with his programme lead and:or personal tutor now. No messing about and see exactly what his options are. The party line will be to wait for the decision of the exam board, however this is essentially a rubber stamping exercise. The programme leader will absolutely know if in his individual circumstances, he is likely to be offered the opportunity to repeat next year. Once you have this information, you can support your son to make a realistic, informed decision. No point having a further attempt and wracking up more debt if he's not likely to complete. On the other hand, if there are issues that can be dealt with then it's worth it. Good luck to your son

Has he passed the dissertation?

I actually moved uni for my third year so I took a DipHE from the first uni, took the APEL as it was called but now might be credit transfer my classification was on the year 2 and 3 marks but the dissertation was also included.

He will probably need to resit the year or take a DipHE or possibly an HND.

He needs to book to meet with his programme lead and:or personal tutor now. No messing about and see exactly what his options are.

As August is about the only time academics can take a proper holiday, he shouldn't be surprised that no-one will be available to see him until September. But as he went on holiday instead of doing his resits, he shouldn't be surprised that staff are unlikely to pull out all stops to advise, frankly.

If he hasn't passed modules he won't pass the year - all modules need to be passed not just the overall average mark being a pass

Hi there, I’m interested to see if anything was sorted out for your son?

my son is in the same position and has not yet heard anything back after his request to repeat year 3.

thanks

So in the end he requested that he's awarded a Diploma of Higher Education, which essentially equates to the first 2 years of his honours degree (which he hadn't checked out on, and did score highly on). This didn't seem to be sent by default as he had to contact the uni several times, the certificate and his official final module credits sheet arrived about a week ago. The Dip of HE is achieved based on passing 120 credits in year 1 and 120 credits in year 2 (same as an HND or a Level 5 qualification)

Whilst his options for anything else at the same uni are none existent, as far as we can see it's possible to use the 240 credits to do a "top up degree" at any other university - which does at least keep that door open to be able to achieve the honours degree (which is Level 6) in either the same or similar subject area in the future

That’s good news OP. Best wishes to DS

Good news he got a diploma and thanks for updating.

Thanks for the update. Glad he got something.

Thank you so much for your update. It seems your son is in the same position as mine. He received his Diploma and is going to be looking at options next year. He’s a bit lost at the moment but has a part time job he’s enjoying so I’m relieved at that. His aftercare from the Uni was poor tbh but I guess they don’t prioritise students who have failed to complete the course. My son did not realise that he could use the Diploma towards another Uni course so this is encouraging. Best of luck to your son in whatever he endeavours to do along with all the other students who find themselves along this path. It really isn’t the end of the world 😊

No problem 😊and yes there's all sort of options out there so try not to let it knock him back, just think of it as a bump in the road!

Sheffield Uni have already confirmed that the 1 year top up can be done using the Dip of HE as long as the overall mark (average I presume) across year 1 and 2 was at least 55.

But there's all sorts of other retake options out there, different Uni's have very different requirements.

As wrong as it sounds, I think Uni's are desperate for students now so the options are much more open. I think they used to make it hard to re-take year 3 to prevent people from redoing a final year to improve on their grade, but that seems to have been relaxed quite a bit.

Another update, and to confirm for anyone else who's in this situation.

My sons been accepted to do a 1 year "top up degree" and starts Uni in September to resit his third year with access to full marks.

Essentially, it seems to be the case that if you did well enough in year 1/2 and screwed up year 3, you can fully resit year 3 (with access to any mark, firsts included).

So you can retake year 3 at your original uni but you can only score a max of a 60% mark and a 2:2 🙄 but if you go elsewhere you have access to graduate fully with any mark 🤔

not quite sure i agree with the logic as it would seem more practical for all if you could resit at your original uni - i can only think they're stuck somewhere between an old world concept where you can't resit your final year, and a new world concept where you can

also, as someone mentioned earlier OU is a great option too for resit - they disclose publicly on their website a lot more about what your transferrable credits are worth and how long they last for, as in you can fail year 3 and then resit in a single year at OU many years later depending on your year 1/2 marks

This is really useful information. Thank you so much for the update which will no doubt help so many others with similar situations. Wishing your son the best of look in finishing his degree 🙏

Really helpful update and good luck to your son. It does seem bizarre if he’d repeated at Lincoln he’d be 2.2 capped but can top up at Sheffield and potentially get 2.1 then presumably will just say BA Hons Sheffield 2.1 on cv.