Anyone familiar with graduation award requirements at Bristol? 🙏

[GraduationQuery]

Two weeks away from graduation, DN has had an email saying he has not been awarded a degree and so cannot graduate. He had deferred one assessment but his head of department said as long as he passed everything else he should be able to graduate with his cohort, ie he didn’t need these credits. He has passed everything, but his eVision shows as “required to complete further assessments”, ie the postponed exam.

He’ll speak to his head of department as soon as he can get hold of him, but is this something there is any chance of resolving in time? Wondering who, apart from his department, he should ask?

Student Services

Unfortunately, Heads of Department aren't always au fait with the fine details of graduation, which are usually handled by a separate division within the university (different names in different universities - at the ones I attended it was called Registry or Conferring Office).

From a quick Google, it looks like your son was never going to be able to graduate in July if he had any outstanding assessments. This would be the norm at most universities, so not sure why the Head advised him otherwise.

https://www.bristol.ac.uk/graduation/information/eligibility/

Unfortunately, Heads of Department aren't always au fait with the fine details of graduation, which are usually handled by a separate division within the university

Thanks. This is exactly the impression I got, but the Graduation Office refer back to the School or Faculty.

The page you link to just refers to the award of a degree as far as I can see, which he should be eligible for even without the deferred assessment.

Try the admin person for his degree within his department. They know the rules backwards. They have to, and spend a lot of time dealing with mess ups academics have promised (not all academics, of course...).

Good point. The department head did copy in the school admin and ask them to confirm, which they seemed to.

For ug, as a rule, he'd need 360 credits. Has he got that?

The page you link to just refers to the award of a degree as far as I can see, which he should be eligible for even without the deferred assessment.

My reading was that he needs to complete the deferred assessment to be eligible

Thanks. I've asked.

But it only talks about needing to have had your award confirmed by the exam board. How you get to that point (eg completion of deferred assessments) isn't covered?

Great, that should help clarify the situation. If he'd failed and then failed a resit he could graduate with a dip HE, but as it seems he just hasn't submitted the last bit yet, it's too early for that. Assuming he was allowed the extension. If he can show you his transcript so far on his student record, and he (not you) can phone the administration office, hopefully you'll get clarity.

Universities want students to graduate, so they will help. Said as ex uni admin of over 20 years...

Good luck. But I think he'll need to submit and graduate later.

The exam board won't have approved it if he is short of credits due to the extension, has he checked his emails, junk etc to see if he was contacted? Some students do go a bit head in the sand about it.

If he hasn't completed all his assessments, he won't yet have gone to the exam board for review.
The exam board would need the results of all assessments to know which classification to award.
The outstanding assessment could be the difference between a 2:1 and a first.

Thank you so much. Can I DM you what eVision is showing?

Of course, go for it

We used to take all our final year, even if not complete, just to confirm what was missing.