Is it always wrong for parents to contact university on behalf of students?

[stripycats]

Just after some advice as I am sitting on my hands and it is becoming difficult. I also don't want to go into too much detail, but if a student has a bit of an issue with the university (not related to grades/marks awarded, discipline or attendance) and struggle to get a resolution themselves, with emails not being replied to, when, if ever would you get involved. There is a financial element to this dispute, which means it does affect me directly. Would it be wrong for me to get involved?

Ask the student to check any contract wording and relevant policy wording in the matter that should be available (although possibly buried) on the university's intranet sites. In many cases there will be details of how to escalate contact, timescales, and so on.

Collect all messages and correspondence together in a file, whether this is within an email account or otherwise. It takes a bit of time but it is useful to refer to dates where X was said, and it will show you how long, realistically, this has been unresolved, which your DC may also need or want to refer to, in case of things not going in the right direction.

Recommend that the DC approaches the Student Union for advice. There are usually parts of it or connected services that will advise on things that are not going according to expectations, and in cases of accommodation, certainly legal and tenancy support that will be familiar with how things work locally.

Get cracking on this. I do agree that the Winter break and the start of term will have meant that things have got delayed on the administrative side, but showing that you are not jogging along with the 'woolliness' may be quite meaningful.

It's not always wrong for the parent to attempt to engage, but it probably won't count for a lot if the matter is not an emergency. Most universities should be hot on GDPR and information restricting to protect students - a number of them do rely on this, as it's not only parents or people with good intentions that may be keen to know their business.

Of course they can’t.
If the child gives permission; they can, but that’s always been the case and it has nothing to do with who’s paying.

Student Union is an excellent idea.

It is literally their job to advocate for students.

Encourage DD to contact her student union.
If she is not a member, ask her to consult a cheap student access lawyer. An official letter will be more helpful to her.

This seems like an overreaction! The op hasn't said how long they have been waiting for a reply, or any other details.
Students and pain general can get very stressed over just a few days wait and I understand it, but departments get very busy and are often short staffed a bit of patience may be required.

Generally speaking, I do think that unis sometimes use not speaking to parents their own advantage, in situations where the uni seems to be at fault.

The issue is about exam concessions. YP has been told these have to be in place within the next four weeks period, now three weeks remain and the last email has not been replied to. We are in limbo and not sure whether we are going to need to pursue a private diagnosis, which is £££ we don't have.

a) exam adjustments are pretty much at will - I've never known anyone need a diagnosis to get them, nor anyone who asked for them not get them. Especially if it's just extra time or a smaller room, they are easy to make happen, but so many students want them these days that it takes a while to arrange them all.
b) from what you've said it sounds like you emailed a week ago and it hasn't been replied to? If you email again, you will just slow down a reply.
c) it will be the incredibly overworked admin staff that are dealing with this, and they will deal with things as they need dealing with, as with A&E triage it's not always first come first served.
d) the only exception to a) is where a student asks for an impossible adjustment that isn't on the list of adjustments e.g. asking for an exam to be remote where it's usually in person. We occasionally arrange for resits to be sat in the student's home country at their cost, where that would be cheaper than flying back. But those are not disability based as you seem to be suggesting.

They absolutely need to do this for themselves, OP - just like we did, and all other adults do. Please don't embarrass them.

It's a very standard adjustment that they had throughout sce school. We've been through various hoops and had negative replies up to now, then done some further digging on the website and when put that in an email (very politely!) had no rely. It hasn't been that long but the problem is the clock is ticking.

Who have you / your DC been in contact with so far? There's usually a student well-being team and it's better IME to approach them rather than the student's lecturers / tutors.

You need proof and it’s student support services with the team responsible for additional needs that you should be dealing with though obviously their personal tutor can be involved. DH and I both worked in HE for almost 60 years between us.

Yes, YP hasn't been dealing with the academic staff at all.

I suspect this varies then, because at our institution the disability team records the requests of the students and the departmental admin staff note these and pass them on to exams. So if they are already on the student's IEP or similar that side is dealt with and it's the department or School admin that will pass those request on to the people that deal with exam rooms.

If it's a request that nobody ever gets however you may be on a hiding to nothing (see my example of remote exams when everyone else is doing them in person).

(So, no, it isn't academic staff, but it also might not be wellbeing).

Does the university have a student support place? Here it's called the Advice Place I think? They help navigate all this with the students and ensure they're doing the right paperwork and including the right people - including things like submitting a complaint if needed.

Academic here. If your child isn't getting help or answers you can escalate, but try to save it for very serious circumstances. Young adults need to learn to advocate for themselves. They can also ask wellbeing services to contact/mediate if the issue is impacting their mental health.

Personal tutor first, I should have said.

I’m going through similar, op, and yes “snooty” is the word. Inefficient also works. They don’t reply and there is no clear system to follow.

But who/what department have you been dealing with?

At my institution, that would be Disability Services (which covers health conditions, injuries, disabilities, learning differences etc and accommodations which include exam concessions, assistive tech, scribes, accessible teaching rooms, accommodation etc etc), which has daily drop-in hours where a student can meet in person with a disability advisor, and very explicit advice online about exactly what forms of evidence are required from a GP/specialist ed psych/other health professional to register for help.

But a student would usually register with Disability Services as soon as they become a student at the institution, and there are orientation courses about what kinds of assistance they may be able to access. They wouldn't be scrambling to meet a deadline in Jan/Feb.

Has your child registered with the equivalent at his/her institution?

Anything to do with exams should be student led, OP, or at least give that appearance. From an academic’s perspective I cannot see overt parental involvement helping.

Not all diagnoses - and I don’t mean this pejoratively, but particularly private ones - are accepted by all universities as warranting mitigation.

Thinking about what may be happening: Has the university offered alternative pathways to diagnosis? Are you positive DC is dealing with the right people and has followed guidance to date?

Not trying to sound adversarial, just wondering what’s going on. Some unis really are bad with SEN students but equally, some students have difficulty adjusting to uni regs. I make no inference about your DC. I am sure they are deeply frustrated.

@Wapentake it does vary though, because at ours, Disability Services doesn't create exam accommodations, the physical arrangements are dealt with by the Exams team, and the communication about who needs them is at Department/School level.
@Cassan you try being about 50% understaffed, and dealing with a mixture of entitled, seriously troubled, and mildly clueless students all of whom should in theory be able to find out what they need from the University's web pages, we'll see how efficient you are and whether you find it helpful to revert to "please read the guidelines before you ask questions" on occasion.

I agree with this.

When I did Mitigating Circs panels and appeals, someone from this office attended every meeting. One of their roles was to advocate informally for students registered with the office.

We learned a lot about their services and advocacy. I strongly recommend that all eligible students register

DC doesn't have a disability and has never claimed to. However, they were initially directed to the DSA, which was wrong. Now they are just trying to get the concession in place but it's proving difficult.

It may not be something you or your DC consider a disability, but you've also mentioned pursuing a private diagnosis, and if it requires an exam concession, whether that's extra time, assistive tech or a private room etc, and there's a question of some form of diagnosis, it may well need to be initially handled via disability services or equivalent (or might be handled via some other route entirely, as @worstofbothworlds suggests is the case at her institution).

You keep saying "we". There is no "we". The student is responsible for communications with the university and they should not need their parents to be drafting all their emails and getting so involved. In a few very short years (if not already) they will be out in the world of work. Are you planning to write their applications, go to interviews with them, and complain to their boss if they are treated unfairly?

I am also not sure why your DC will get a concession when they don't have a disability. Extra time is a reasonable adjustment for disabilities.