Advice needed- would you advise retaking year 3 in these circumstances?

[ButterB3333nz]

My son has ADHD, ASC and suffers from severe OCD. He had a really difficult year last year ( year 3 of a 4 year MEng course). Unfortunately he ended up needing to retake his dissertation and to do 2 retakes which would be capped and he’d do this year at home. It would bring him just under a 2:1
so a 2:2 which wouldn’t be enough( we’re presuming)to progress to year 4 but we have seen a couple of masters that take 2:2s.They have just offered him the option of retaking the year. Doesn’t look as if they’ll let him do his retakes uncapped. He has just started medication for OCD. Really don’t know what to advise him to do, it’s a lot of money.Any thoughts?

The repayments for 5 years of undergrad is very different to having an undergrad loan plus masters loan on top. Has he applied for exceptional circumstances, academic appeal or whatever the uni calls it with medical evidence to try and get the resits uncapped? He really needs to talk to either student support or the student union at his uni.

He has but they’re not much help.

Why are they very different?

The masters year of a degree which is an integrated masters course (MEng / MMath/ MSci or whatever) is funded in the same way as the other years - separate fees element, partially means tested maintenance element etc. So just an extra year of funding on the same terms as the loan for a BSc / BA etc.

For a standalone Master's, the available funding is a non-means tested lump sum, paid to the student to use as they will (pay fees with it if they have alternative means of support / use it to live off, if they or someone else pays the fees) and may or may not cover the fees. No separate maintenance loan available. Plus the repayment threshold is lower than that for the undergraduate loan.

Hi, OP -

Student Finance England will add one year to the term of the original loan with no questions asked. If DS was originally on the MEng programme, he can repeat (once), creating a 5 yr loan, with no problem. If he transferred from BEng to MEng he has used the automatic extension and would need to petition.

I think this sounds like a great opportunity, if the finances work. However DS needs to understand what went wrong and how to prevent it happening again. Experience of SEN personal tutees and Mitigating Circumstances Committees says that good intentions do not suffice.

Is DS fully engaged with all of the assistance his School and university will offer him? If not (and if he is ready to take up the offer of repeating) he needs to consult with a Student Support Officer or similar asap to line up all the help he can get.

If this is really the right time. The offer to repeat came at short notice. Is DS ready for this? No shame in asking if it can be deferred while he gets his head in the right place.

I understand the repeat mark is likely to be capped, formally. But for purposes of continuing into Y4, I would expect DS’ true ability to be the determining factor. You say even the capped mark would put him very close to a 2.1 so this is definitely something he should ask about.

Finally, yes - perfectly possible to find a decent MSc programme that will take a 2.2. If DS gets a 2.1 using the true repeat mark and if his referee can explain why the circs of the first attempt st Y3 are not likely to resurface, his chances will be even stronger. But he needs to be in a good place mentally for this to happen.

The OCD medication is a fine first step. But I think it is more like an umbrella in the rain than a port in a storm.

Very best wishes to DS

All good advice. Thankyou. Can I ask what did you mean about the funding? Initially he was on a 3 year BEng course so would be entitled to a 4 th year of funding? He switched to MEng as a few do at the beginning of the 3rd year. So retaking this third year would be fine ( as it would be a 4th year)however the 4th year of the MEng ( which would run into a 5th)might not be? The problem is he doesn’t have long to make the decision and getting hold of student loans company is tricky

Re your experience of EC committees are you saying often retaking the year doesn’t work out well?

Hu, again -

Re the tuition fees loan: yes. Because DS originally had a 3 year loan, his automatic extension can be used for the MEng year or to repeat Y3, but he would need to petition in order to receive a loan for both. One hopes it is easy but none of my tutees have done it, that I can recall, so I have no experience to offer.

The problem with repeating is that it students tend to see the offer of doing so as a solution in itself. If they haven’t figured out how to avoid going off the rails again, the second attempt is likely to go no better than the first. This is why I advocate very strongly for taking the time to get life (reasonably) right before taking up the offer.

When they do take this time, it can go fantastically well. Eg one of my own tutees who was an erratic performer with clear potential took a year out to get clean, repeated Y2 and graduated with a 1st. (He was offered the repeat only because his health had suffered so badly and he missed a lot of the academic year)

Many SEN students are reluctant to seek the help they need. But it only levels the playing field for them. They desperately need to see this.

Again, best wishes to DS

Good for thought. Do you not find your students are at a bit of a disadvantage having a complete year out before repeating the year due to all the previous study in year 1&2 being forgotten?

The break is not ideal, academically, but material that was learnt well sticks pretty well.
It’s great if students can do some review during the year out but that is a big ask.

However this is as nothing compared to repeating the mistakes which led to the original problems.

Also, it’s worth looking ahead. The real goal is a career. That will need the same types of personal skills as academic success - time management, varying levels of interpersonal skills, the ability to fight off perfectionistic tendencies, etc. I know the present situation is challenging, but this is really the best time to work on these things, whether or not that requires a break in studies. My Mit Circs work has me firmly convinced that not taking that break to get healthier is perhaps the biggest mistake students make. (Of course if a petition to do so is denied, one must make the best of it)

Whenever DS resumes studies, it would be a good idea for him to visit the Careers Service for advice on building his resume. This should be fairly early in the year, but after he has got comfortable working with his School and The Office for Students with Disabilities on his accommodations. The latter should be able to steer him to a Careers officer who will be sensitive to his needs.

I’ve been following your threads about Student Finance. FWIW I consulted the UCAS website before speaking to that aspect. Please don’t take advice from any of us: get expert advice from the uni and Student Finance ASAP

Take care

Thank you for all this it really is useful and may help somebody else too. Yes we will. Have contacted uni finance and will put in the funding application to the loans company and will try to speak to them tomorrow.

It’s so difficult trying to support young people with additional needs, they need to make all the decisions and we don’t know what’s the best way to advise them because we’re not them and we don’t know what is best.

You need to speak with student loan company. I know they are so very hard to get hold of but I think only they can advise on finances. That aside if he's now on meds are the meds helping him? If they are and the OCD was the problem before he has a good chance of repeating the entire year and succeeding. He needs to organise his time across his modules. To do his dissertation he could ask student services to help him break it down into smaller chunks of work help him to allocate time chunks to each section to keep him on track.