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?

Thanks OP. I thought youvsaid earlier he wasn’t working with them

@ParmaVioletTea has DS best interest at heart, OP. Gently, it isn’t at all clear to what extent DS is working with the Office for Students with Disabilities. Has he been assessed regarding extra time for exams? An extension for his dissertation? At my uni it is likely from what you’ve said that he would be entitled to both of these. Possibly more. He needs to take all the help he can get.

Also you’ve said DS cannot manage his uni email. We understand that is part of his ND but, again gently, he has probably got behind with things and this has not helped, at minimum.

If he can repeat Y3 he can spend part of his time learning life skills. The OfSwD can help.

@RhubarbandC I didn't say your son screwed up - just that there are often complexities on all sides of these complex situations. I was responding to the post which flagged the possibility he didn't have an explicit individual learning plan, and noting that however much staff would like to, they can't give mitigations without a plan & documentation. Of course, if he does have these, then my comments don't apply.

But over the last 35 years I have dealt with a lot of students (and their parents) who tell me of mitigating circumstances & learning disabilities, but there is no documentation or learning plan. I can be as accommodating as I can in those circumstances, but fairness & university regs don't allow a lot of individual staff wiggle room - which is fair & transparent.

@ParmaVioletTea the problem may have been earlier confusion between OP and me

He had a small extension for his dissertation with ECs which he organised before submission. Traits of ND can’t be held responsible for these screw ups. They are admin screw ups by the university.

What is OfSwD? Sadly you can’t learn yourself out of ND. I wish you could.

Think I said we’d contact disability as I’m confused as to who is responsible for what. He was registered and had an ILSP. Is that disability?Screwing all this up with a ND student who has an ILSP and is managing MH struggles makes it even more shit imvho.

OfSwD is my abbreviation for Office for Students with Disabilities.

Do you know if DS has explored other mitigations with the OfSwD?

You can’t will yourself out of neurodiversity but you can learn to cope to varying degrees. There are planning tools and techniques, calming tools and techniques, communications and skills workshops, etc. I have seen all of these help a lot. OfSwD will know about them

He has an ILSP so I think that must be with disability. Totally agree there are things that can help however ND is a spectrum, it differs massively and having 2xND and MH struggles makes it harder for these things to have an impact. He is a battler though and has been trying to work out what might help, wants to try meds etc but very looong waiting lists don’t help. I think the uni screw ups is the main problem he’s having to try and overcome atm. He will definitely continue to work out and look at strategies for his ND though .

Would just like to add I do think there is a problem with unis ticking the ND box and not really understanding how it presents. There is an issue with ND young people away from home for the first time being expected to ignore their disability to access support. It’s like somebody who needs a ramp being told to go up stairs to access it. I don’t know what the answer is but I do think unis need to understand ND better and appreciate that screw ups like this are massively problematic for a struggling ND young person.

Sympathies, OP. DD is taking ‘the scenic route’ through a degree at a university where finding cuts are not biting as hard as elsewhere, and tbh we simply assume that no part of ‘the system’ will cope with the admin involved. At any given point, something within the process is always slightly awry - whether that be marks; finance; support plans; additional documentation etc.

We have learned that the admin burden of disability is itself an additional disadvantage, however unfair that seems, and also that emotionless, realistic persistence and vigilance is the only way to sort out the inevitable issues. Working on the assumption that everyone is a well-meaning but extremely busy person working within a cumbersome system designed for ‘the standard procedures’ has kept us sane!

This is not just for ND, though. When the form to access support for a severe energy-limiting condition runs to 47 pages and requires said disabled student to get 3 different expert opinions from face to dace high energy-use appointments, you know that nobody has imagined what this is like for the student involved!

Disability support services and processes are, almost inevitably, designed by the well. Expecting them to empathise with and adapt to fit every individual student’s needs, without the student having to work quite intensively with them to define their specific needs, is quite a big ask in a funding and time-poor environment, especially as levels of diagnosed SEN / disability of all types are exploding.

Edited to add: The transition from a mainly parent-led interaction with services in school to a wholly young adult-led process in university, while entirely age appropriate, is also a potential source of difficulty and frustration.

I don’t know what the answer is but I do think unis need to understand ND better and appreciate that screw ups like this are massively problematic for a struggling ND young person.

We try, but staff are not available 1 to 1, nor can we run their lives for them. That's what @poetryandwine is gently suggesting - that part of what university is for your DS (and many like him) is learning coping skills to navigate the world as an independent adult. There is a lot of support and goodwill at universities generally, but it's up to students to use these resources. They need to ask, and engage. I understand that sometimes that's the one thing they find difficult, but staff really can't be responsible for that, frankly. I think it's one of the really essential things for kids to learn in their final years of secondary school - how to advocate for themselves, how to access support and so on. It's hard but really essential - and parents need to be keyed in to this.

NT students also need to learn to navigate adult life at university - indeed, all students actually! Staff can't do it for them., nor would students want us to.

Hmm to a point however I think mistakenly dis enrolling somebody( having just taken the fees off them) and then a year later wiping exams marks and mistakenly giving a ND degree student with a learning plan and MH struggles a diploma and incorrectly not offering them retakes at an extremely upsetting time of year is beyond that. It’s inexcusable, shit and indicates some quite serious problems.

We have learned that the admin burden of disability is itself an additional disadvantage, however unfair that seems, and also that emotionless, realistic persistence and vigilance is the only way to sort out the inevitable issues. Working on the assumption that everyone is a well-meaning but extremely busy person working within a cumbersome system designed for ‘the standard procedures’ has kept us sane!

Excellent excellent advice!

Colleagues and I do get that "the admin burden of disability is itself an additional disadvantage " but there's not a lot we can do about that, frankly. It can be frustrating for everyone involved.

At the current time, the dates of DD’s degree (false start date); her marks for this year (falsely indicating a fail); her student finance for next year (falsely implying she cannot be an undergraduate) and the total owed on student finance (about £15 k too high) are all wrong - essentially because the computers involved have no way of dealing with her. There is no malice in this. It isn’t active incompetence or an active error, and in that she may differ from your DS.

He does and has navigated university life. He has done amazing and has admirable coping skills. He manages a complex disability and did amazing to get to uni and to have achieved what he has so far.Major screw ups like this are not ok and are particularly unhelpful for a ND student. Excusing them by focusing on his ND isn’t ok either.

Autism is a disability.Autistic students can’t just learn how to advocate for themselves and access support readily at school. If they could they wouldn’t have said disability. It’s this lack of awareness I find worrying. Unis are happy to take fees off ND young people and to tick a ND box to say they’re meeting provision but actually they need to understand ND better. Surely ND students have a lot to offer. It’s about being better informed and thinking of ways to open access to support. Just saying we can’t help you unless you get up those stairs to access your ramp is I’m afraid a bit lazy.

I’m sure there’s no malice but it is incompetence. A system consistently screwing up is by definition incompetent.

I have another ND child who doesn’t experience this at uni. If other unis can manage to provide a competent system then so should this one. We don’t accept incompetency in other areas of life.

I think ‘screwing up’ implies active malice.

’Getting things wrong’ is inevitable when a mass computer system has been designed for the vast majority and there is simply no way of indicating the complex reality. All the things that are wrong for DD is because there is no way to fill in the fields in the system to reflect the way she us doing the course. We accept that - the individual administrator cannot create fields that are not there and is working on a ‘best fit’ situation, often within bulk data uploads. When it results in a significant lasting mistake, we point it out and another human intervenes and finds another ‘best fit’ workaround that resolves the specific problem.

We cannot expect every system to fit around our individual disabled young people. It’s heartbreaking, but we just have to keep on advocating and modelling polite, rational and professional resolution.

I don’t think it’s inevitable that a uni computer system dis enroll students after they’ve just paid several thousand pounds in fees with the result that they have no timetable for quite some time and lose their dissertation title as a result. I also don’t think it’s inevitable that a computer system at a university doesn’t recognise resits and loses exam results and awards an inaccurate qualification to a student with SEN and MH difficulties at a very stressful time. I also don’t think it’s inevitable that such students are left off resits and left to frantically try to find out what is going on. His disability is not the reason for any of the above and is actually a separate issue. Incompetency and a computer system not fit for purpose in this particular uni are the reasons. Resits are part and parcel of uni life, any system that can’t cope with such a basic part of uni life is inadequate and needs to be sorted out.