Help advice needed re really poor uni admin screw ups

[RhubarbandC]

Help my son is at a pretty well thought of uni. He is ND and also struggling with his MH. Last summer he got EC and did 2 resists which he passed well. This enabled him to continue on to the 3rd year of an MEng this year. He had an email confirming this.Unfortunately they made an admin mistake and unrolled him for a few weeks so he started his dissertation 4 weeks late and don’t get the subject he was expecting. He didn’t have a great year mentally and the above didn’t help but managed to submit his dissertation and do his final exams this year .Needs to do 2 resists and resubmit his dissertation. EC were discussed by course leader before both. Nothing onerous. Went online today and last years resits have been removed from his profile with the result that they have awarded him a DipED and off the retake route for a BEng which is completely incorrect. He has emailed to alert them to the error but we’re really worried they won’t be able to find last years resists grades if they’ve just disappeared. It’s such a stupid mistake as he wouldn’t have been allowed on to the third year without them.

He has paid a fortune for this degree and needs to study for the 2 resists but can’t even book them. The worry isn’t helping him focus on his studying and I’m so bloody angry, their admin is shite. These young people pay a fortune in fees , his ND and MH struggles are well documented and twice he has been messed around.

Is this normal and how likely is it that the grades will be found?

Sounds like he needs to speak to the administrator in the department initially to find out what happened at this years exam board meeting and take it from there.

Each year an exam board will be convened to review and confirm all the marks for each particular degree scheme and his end of year results will have been finalised at that board meeting, so there will be a record of last year’s decision. Presumably he was given a copy of his confirmed results last year? They can’t just disappear.

If you think they have made an error, tell him to put a request for a review in writing in order to ensure you have a paper trail of evidence to follow.

Nope nothing in writing they just go up on his account each year. Thank goodness he has an email from the screw up last year saying they could see the resists results which met the criteria for him to proceed to the third year but now they’re off his account he has no other evidence other than they took his money and he attended the third year. You need the grades to do so. It’s nuts they’re so badly disorganised and it’s a big well thought of uni.

University lecturer here. Contact personal tutor to look into this

If you're going to need to assist him with any of this then make sure he emails his department head cc everyone else and gives explicit permission for them to speak to you. Particularly if his mental health is poor its a useful back up. Slightly different my ds withdrew from uni but the amount of phone calls and tooing and fro ing meant he needed practical admin back up from me.

We helped him draw up an email last night which he sent. We’re urging him to follow it up by ringing the dep to chase a response. We’re just really shocked at how awful the admin for such an expensive course is and worried about further screw ups when he does his retakes and resubmission of his dissertation It’s particularly bad as he has EC, ND and a learning support thing in place which is pretty meaningless but there none the less. He’s a bright lad and working really hard to get fully well so crap like this ( again)which he doesn’t deserve and makes things worse is frustrating.

Suggest he contacts the Student Union as well as they usually offer some academic advice and support around the EC and should be able to advocate for him. Hope this can all be resolved for him quickly, OP.

Do you mean that it is still showing the original marks for the exams before the resits? At my son’s university if they need to resit they do so to enable them to progress but the original exam grade remains the same and are capped at 40%.

No it’s saying he didn’t sit them at all!!!!He had extenuating circumstance so they weren’t capped either. He needed the higher grades to progress to the third year and to be on the MEng not BEng which he was and has been for the past year.

Hi, OP -

So your DS had ‘Resits as First Attempts’ owing to Extenuating Circumstances and therefore the marks were uncapped. Because he did well he proceeded to Y3.

This was perhaps unclear.

As you say, it should be obvious that something happened because DS progressed But this is the kind of thing that people have a hard time believing, and that makes them thick. They revert to inaction.

That email confirming he could progress is golden. He should make copies and send you one for security.Move another to a personal account. Keep a timeline of his actions in the personal account.

This is a university IT issue. It is their responsibility to resolve it and to make things right for DS. Hold fast to that.

To help: I agree with PP involving DS personal tutor and the Student Union. DS needs to practise conveying the key points of his story concisely. Luckily these people will grasp that his progression to Y3 lends great weight to his version of events.

I feel sure that this will eventually work out because, thinking ahead, the Office for Students (the national mediator) would side with DS and the uni don’t want it to go that far. But they owe him a quick and easy resolution and I very much hope he gets it.

Ok that’s really helpful. Thankyou. I just can’t get my head round why they don’t get results on paper and they can just disappear and screw up like this. It’s bad enough for anybody but for somebody ND and struggling as it is which they’re aware of it’s dreadful.

It is completely unacceptable that marks are stored in such a way that this could happen.

The copies of the email informing DS of progression are vital because the uni can argue that on the basis of known marks (the old ones) progression was a mistake. The email says otherwise. DS needs copies not accessible to the university.

I know the ND makes it all 100x worse. I am so sorry.

Please keep us updated, as I can imagine various next steps - including persistent inaction - by the university. Take care

PS does DS have a smart phone? It will help if he can show his tutor and the SU the email confirming progression to Y3.

Actually it might be best to forward this msg to his PT with the original msg describing the problem

Yep done that. Still not had a reply. Told him to ring to nudge today. They have told him to ring back later. 🙄

Many academics are away doing research now. The SU may only be partially staffed for the summer. Hugely frustrating, I know.

Has DS included a copy of the letter confirming his satisfactory resits and progression in emails with the School admin team?

Many universities are shedding staff (through voluntary redundancy or other means). This includes both academic and professional services staff. Remaining staff are being reorganised. It’s entirely possible that the current administrative staff may not have a good understanding of the marking and exam system or indeed know students and their circumstances personally.
So, definitely follow it up.

They told him to ring back at 2 nobody answered and still isn’t. Don’t know what to do. He doesn’t want to upset anybody by continuously trying.There must be somebody we can escalate this to.

Try again tomorrow. If the same thing happens - no one is there at 2 or whenever - DS should write to his Director of Undergraduate Studies of equivalent. Every email should be given 48 hrs for response, even in a situation line this. I don’t think you need the Dean’s office yet, but the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies is on the back burner. If DS has already contacted his DUS, it is time for the AD-US.

Background: If anyone has used autoreply saying they are on annual leave, or an academic says they are travelling, that is fair - DS should just say that eg ‘unfortunately our Student Support Officer is on Annual Leave and my Personal Tutor is travelling for research. I don’t know who else to contact.’ (The SSO should have included an alternate contact so this points out a failing without direct criticism.)

Otherwise he should just list by title the people ‘I have repeatedly contacted’ and say that when he has followed instructions they still haven’t responded.

Then briefly but completely tell his story, no emotion. Include a copy of the letter showing satisfactory results from the resits as first attempts and the resulting progression.

’I would be grateful to hear from someone in your office very soon’

Very best wishes

PS Is DS making sure people have various ways to contact him? Is his ringtone loud enough? Writing as someone who has accidentally silenced my phone before.

The higher DS goes the more likely people are to recognise the gravity of this situation for the university. Being unable to secure student marks is a grave issue.

He has finally heard back ftom a student programmes officer in his department who is looking in to it. We need urgent clarification as have no dates for the 2 retakes he needs to do and he is struggling to focus due to worry. Course leader is now off until Thursday of next week. Emailing back tonight to highlight this and to point out how poor losing / deleting his results is. They were on his profile thing before but were just taken off.

So from the thread he needs to also email now:-
student union
personal tutor( although he says his will just say “that sucks”🤔)
student support officer
director of undergraduate studies

later maybe:-
associate dean of undergraduate studies
dean
office for students

Hi, OP -

Of course DS is struggling and again I am very sorry, but getting a response from the SPO stops the clock. They need 2 business days to investigate. DS can contact them again first thing Friday if he hadn’t heard more, then again late on Monday if he still hasn’t heard.

Tuesday next DS can escalate. The reason is that anyone he escalates to will check his timeline. If they don’t think he gave the SPO enough time they will simply tell him to take the issue back to his School.

It is worth looping his Personal Tutor in because if he doesn’t someone is likely to suggest he do so, stopping the clock meanwhile. Also, you never can tell who will step up.

I have left the course module leader(s) off the list because IT security isn’t their issue. Possibly DUS would refer back to them which is fine.

Also, you don’t go to the Office for Students until you have exhausted procedures within the university. So:

Pause for response from SPO. Then DUS and SU. Then AD-US, keep chasing SU. Then Dean of Faculty. Then the Central University Admin Officer for UG students, keep chasing SU. (Different universities will have different titles)

Assuming no misunderstanding has come to light - and I must gently warn you to bear in mind that this is always a possibility - if no resolution has been reached, DS can then raise a complaint concerning the breach of security of his academic records and its consequences with the Office for Students.

Ok thank you. That’s really helpful. I really don’t think there can be a misunderstanding,he passed the exams and they were on his interactive transcript. You needed a 2:1 to progress onto the 3 year of Meng which is what his loan for that year for was which paid the fees for said course which they took and he attended all last year. He was in contact with the course leader during the course and before exams and whilst doing his dissertation. We have an email when they screwed up at the beginning of the year with them saying “ you did pass your resits so there is no problem with you continuing on your year 3”

I’m just staggered how awful their IT department is and that this can happen.

Said SPO also only works Monday-Wednesday. 😖He hasn’t even got resit dates to work out an accurate revision timetable and it’s causing him so much anxiety and pacing. Have told him to just assume it will get sorted and try to just focus on his studies(easier said than done I know). What is so frustrating is he has done amazing this year at managing studying, ND and battling on with his MH. Knew he’d need to do a couple of resists but was stoical.This is just so unhelpful.

A handful of emails is not the way to sort this one.

And yes, it sucks, but it’s also life skills time. Plenty of other things in the rest of life will screw up the records and he’ll need to navigate that so this is when you help him learn how to do that.

It means phone calls. It means tracing through the system who the relevant person is. It means working out who knows the exam dates so can get those in the diary in the meantime. It means setting self up for success and studying for the exams because if he knows it’s just a records issue then he should know he can do the exams.

There should be information management / data governance for the university. They have a legal obligation to ensure errors in records are resolved and corrected and should work year round. They’re a good group to add to your target list.

I know and he did try phoning all day yesterday even though phone calls aren’t that easy for him. Hence him tracking down an SPO. Non idea if that’s the best person, it was the only person. There is hardly anybody there, answering or returning calls . NDx 2 is hugely debilitating and he is doing his best to sort out a mess he didn’t cause but balancing that with studying, ND and EC(they knew about)isn’t that easy.

I am not convinced that ‘figuring out who to call’ is the way forward. The IT people who can sort this are not likely to respond to an undergraduate. I agree it is wonderful if they do!

If DS thinks he can stay composed on the phone and replace some of those emails with phone calls, that’s great. But aside from the SPO, many on my list will be WFH or spend their time in meetings, so not reachable by phone. Long messages explaining this unusual problem are not a good idea!

Also he won’t have records and if this does need to be escalated to the OfS he will need records.

I know this may be difficult for him, but he csn and must start revising without knowing the timetable. Can you help with that, OP?

I am not sure that not knowing his exam dates will count as an EC, if one is needed. However as long as he isn’t giving people longer than 48 hrs to reply to their emails (or whatever uni policy says - that is typical) he is proceeding in a timely manner to resolve the problem and cannot be criticised.

The mess over his marks will defo count as an EC of the first order if it isn’t resolved soon.

DS should immediately screenshot a copy of his marks with the old marks that were replaced by the resit marks. He and you should keep copies of the screenshots away from his uni account.. Because if and when the problem is fixed, this will be the only evidence that it happened.

Is DS signed up with the Office for Students with Disabilities or similar? This is not the same as simply having DLA. They can be fantastic advocates for ND students during EC panel meetings. They will understand how badly this is affecting him. If he isn’t signed up yet, this might be the time. He can check online to see if they ate open over the summer.

PS I do agree with @ScaryM0nster that DS should get the relevant exam dates from someone in his School, pronto. That was a great idea.

She is also correct about the university’s legal duty. That’s why I have bern saying that higher ups will recognise the gravity of the situation.