DS will use a laptop for A level exam due to poor handwriting. Can he also do this at Uni?

[Treylime]

DS in y13 took GCSEs and will take A levels on a laptop at school. He has no SEN just poor handwriting. His school and 6th form assessed his writing and let him use a laptop.
He has 5 offers for Uni (for Geography) and I'm not sure whether he will be able to do the same for his Uni assessments/exams.
Who should he contact to ask about this? The Geography departments?

Some of them absolutely do. As has been said several times, it's important to check with each specific uni as there is no sector standard.

For his written assignments, he will have to use a PC. I taught at a university for many years and cannot remember the last time I saw a handwritten assignment . All assignments get uploaded and put through plagiarism software, so they have to be typed.
Exams are different, but if his handwriting is illegible, then he will almost certainly be allowed to type. He will have time to sort this out before the first exams.

Finished a degree in 2022 - only used a laptop for every exam and assignemnt on my course was electronic. - Both DD's doing masters currently and again its pretty much all computer based

Yes. He needs to present the evidence from the school - assessment and written evidence from school to the learning support of the university he gets into and it should be fine
it’s a question you can ask at open days when you go to the learning support booth.

Depends on the university and the course. I spent half of January correcting hand written exams. Soul destroying.

That was 2022. Obviously it will depend on university and department, but hand written traditional exams are making a comeback.

Assessments will be on computer. Some exams may be too, otherwise it will be down to assessment

And yet my daughter just two weeks ago had all uni exams on a computer.

Good for her. That would have been the case at my institution a couple of years ago, but not now. Hand written exams in exam halls are back.

As I said, it will depend on the university and department.

As the saying goes, one swallow does not a summer make.

This is a bit of a tangent, but there is a tendency in the Higher Ed topic for some posters to assume that because their child's uni (or the uni in which they work) does 'x', every uni in the country does 'x'.

Extrapolating from personal experience is a normal human impulse (and I'm sure I've been guilty of it at times) but it risks misleading people over some quite important stuff.

Agreed. The only sensible approach is to ask these questions of the university he makes his first choice, or preferably his shortlisted universities so that he can make a fully informed decision. Don't assume that because one university does it one way, another will do likewise.

Back in the Dark Ages, I broke a bone in my hand, days before exams.

The solution offered was for me to dictate every word (and diagram - Sciences) to a scribe, with a guaranteed pass to the next year should this procedure lower my mark.

Apparently I was penalised in 1 exam for my scribe’s poor handwriting….

Each university will have differing requirements. At Cambridge poor handwriting on its own and confirmation you’ve always been able to type exams whilst at school won’t get you a laptop for exams. For some subjects, this will be irrelevant anyway, where exams are completed online, but this is changing back slowly to in person, handwritten exams. I have known students be told to go away and focus on ensuring their writing is legible. For Cambridge tripos exams, illegible scripts are returned by the university to the college and the student will be asked to produce a legible script under supervision. Not what you want to be doing when your friends are off celebrating the end of exams.

Yes, when ds and I were exploring our options before he was granted use of a computer at Oxford he was told to practise his handwriting (done that over many years to no avail) and was advised that if his scripts were illegible he would need to read them out to be transcribed, at our cost. This would not have worked anyway, aside from the cost and inconvenience, as he can't read his own writing. Luckily we got the OT report and they accepted it but I was really starting to worry at one point that he'd have to leave as there would be no way he would succeed if having to handwrite exams.

The issue is that you have an unfair advantage over students who handwrite their exams if you are permitted to type.

Seriously? That is such an ablist attitude.

Providing reasonable adjustments is about attempting to level the playing field. If my ds was to produce anything vaguely legible, he would probably manage to write a couple of pages max in a 2 hour exam. Even being allowed to type, he's still at a disadvantage as he struggled to learn how to structure his written work when everyone else was doing so as his focus was still on forming his writing. He also had technical exams(physics etc) that required drawing diagrams. Frequently, they are much more difficult to draw on a computer than free hand.

Also, as an academic, those who type are corrected the same way as those who write. I definitely don't see any difference in volume written between those typing and those writing.

Experience of son and all friends at university is that everything is handed in online anyway. That is a range of universities including Oxford, Liverpool, Coventry, Keele and the two Manchester ones. I would check with the university but would not see it as an issue as schools have to prove this is the usual
way of working (SEN Teacher)

Why? What is the advantage?

Speed? Not really - especially as eg drawing diagrams etc is MUCH slower.

Spelling? Spellcheck etc usually disabled.

Access to other information on the computer? Again, disabled, and its use would count as cheating.

Use in a separate quieter room with sockets rather than in a large exam hall (if this is part of the arrangement)? If a student is significantly disadvantaged by being in a large room, then they too can apply for the reasonable adjustment of being in a smaller one.

’Looks a better final product’ compared with a handwritten, crossed out etc paper. This is an interesting one - certainly at primary age I have anecdotal evidence that children with neat presentation score better in writing assessments than those which are technically better in terms of grammar, vocabulary and presentation but are scruffy. On the other hand, a typewritten script signals ‘this is a student with an additional need’. I would hope that by university level, marking criteria etc would be rigorous enough to avoid bias on the basis of ‘how it looks at first glance’.

Or were you thinking of a different ‘advantage’ that I haven’t though of?

I can assure you that handing everything in online is not typical of every UK university. Not even Oxford.

https://www.ox.ac.uk/students/academic/exams/completing-an-exam/in-person-exams

Which is why I didn't say it was. I named a few universities where family and friends are at the moment and are handing in online (including niece at Oxford) and suggested the OP check with her DC's choices.

Speed - absolutely use of a laptop provides an advantage. Typing is much quicker than writing by hand, especially for today’s students who on the whole type up term time work and take lecture notes on a laptop and rarely write essays at speed by hand.

Diagrams are difficult to produce on a laptop so are completed by hand on paper and included in the final submission where the exam is completed under special conditions.

There is no access to the internet in an exam which is typed, except in an online open book exam, where all candidates will be able to type.

A type-written script amongst handwritten scripts is a giveaway that a candidate has had special conditions for the exam, but the examiner won’t be aware of any additional writing time or rest breaks which may have been awarded, or whether the candidate has been in a smaller, quieter room on their own.

The advantage of using a laptop over writing by hand you hadn’t mentioned is the candidate’s ability to structure their essays more freely and to organise and reorganise their thoughts by cutting and pasting their script throughout the exam.

But absolutely, speed of typing over writing by hand is a main advantage.

Have you explored Hypermobility? My DS was diagnosed when age 10 after years of additional support for poor handwriting and no improvement. Now in secondary school he is allowed to use laptop (gsce year) which is a big relief. Once I read up on Hypermobility much other things he does makes sense