UCAS/University Cock up - Advice?

[JakeS]

My OH has applied to do a university course (applied in December 2009) through the UCAS website. On January 26th she was given an unconditional offer for a place on that course and received a letter from UCAS telling her to expect an information pack close towards the start date of the course, which is due to start on the 13th of this month.

She hadn't received anything from the University so decided to ring them up yesterday and find out when it would be sent out. It turns out that the University have no record of giving her a place or an unconditional offer. Now, she has resigned from her job, and put her life on hold so that she can do this course to pursue a new career but has just be told that the course is full and she will not be on it. She has everything sorted to do the course this year.

We have managed to contact the Head Lecture of the faculty and have said how utterly ridiculous the whole situation is. She will essentially be without any thing to do, and no way to support herself as she won't be getting her student loan which she was going to rely on.

She is stting it as she has no idea what to expect. We are expecting a call back from someone to hopefully bringing good news, but if not, do we have any other leg to stand on as at the end of the day on UCAS she has a place?

Really hoping for some PH collective knowledge to let me know what options she has!

Thanks.

[parakitaMol.]

Contact the head of admissions at that university and try to negotiate.

Also, what about the other choices on her UCAS form? did she have any other offers for other courses or institutions?

I would also be persuing this through UCAS as well.

[staceyb]

Does she still have all her emails/letters from UCAS and her UCAS logons? All the info should be on there, sounds like UCAS have royally fked up.

[Carlique]

Surely you can arrange a meeting with the university, taking along all letters regarding the course in which you've received As well as print screens from your UCAS account, proving to them that you did actually received an unconditional offer etc ?

[JakeS]

parakitaMol. said:

Contact the head of admissions at that university and try to negotiate.

Also, what about the other choices on her UCAS form? did she have any other offers for other courses or institutions?

I would also be persuing this through UCAS as well.

No other choice as by doing this course she will be given a place on a Paramedic Science course. Which now throws her whole future out the window until it is sorted. We are speaking with the head of admissions for the Health Science department today but if that is fruitless we will contact the head of the college.

She has quickly mentioned it to UCAS who have just confirmed that the offer was given and on what date. We asked to find out who issued it but they do not know. Again, if this call today is not the news we want we will bring UCAS into it. Is there any legal standing on Uni offers?

[plg]

PM sent

[JakeS]

plg said:

PM sent

Thanks, Replied!

[parakitaMol.]

JakeS said:

parakitaMol. said:

Contact the head of admissions at that university and try to negotiate.

Also, what about the other choices on her UCAS form? did she have any other offers for other courses or institutions?

I would also be persuing this through UCAS as well.

No other choice as by doing this course she will be given a place on a Paramedic Science course. Which now throws her whole future out the window until it is sorted. We are speaking with the head of admissions for the Health Science department today but if that is fruitless we will contact the head of the college.

She has quickly mentioned it to UCAS who have just confirmed that the offer was given and on what date. We asked to find out who issued it but they do not know. Again, if this call today is not the news we want we will bring UCAS into it. Is there any legal standing on Uni offers?

Don't know about the legality I am afraid. Is this the only course that will give her that access? UCAS have a course search tool on their website where you put the code in and it shows all the institutions that offer it - maybe worth doing that research as a back up plan. Is it a 3 year course or is it a foundation course of some sort?

I wouldn't panic though, if they have admitted they told you that then they clearly have a record of it so I expect the Uni will be supportive. Also, another thing to bear in mind is that the drop out rate at the end of the first term is quite high (this is why universities don't get all their funding on the first term's attendance). If that happened to me and it was the only choice I would be on teh phone to the Head of Faculty every week till someone switched courses or dropped out... worst case scenario.

[JakeS]

parakitaMol. said:

JakeS said:

parakitaMol. said:

Contact the head of admissions at that university and try to negotiate.

Also, what about the other choices on her UCAS form? did she have any other offers for other courses or institutions?

I would also be persuing this through UCAS as well.

No other choice as by doing this course she will be given a place on a Paramedic Science course. Which now throws her whole future out the window until it is sorted. We are speaking with the head of admissions for the Health Science department today but if that is fruitless we will contact the head of the college.

She has quickly mentioned it to UCAS who have just confirmed that the offer was given and on what date. We asked to find out who issued it but they do not know. Again, if this call today is not the news we want we will bring UCAS into it. Is there any legal standing on Uni offers?

Don't know about the legality I am afraid. Is this the only course that will give her that access? UCAS have a course search tool on their website where you put the code in and it shows all the institutions that offer it - maybe worth doing that research as a back up plan. Is it a 3 year course or is it a foundation course of some sort?

I wouldn't panic though, if they have admitted they told you that then they clearly have a record of it so I expect the Uni will be supportive. Also, another thing to bear in mind is that the drop out rate at the end of the first term is quite high (this is why universities don't get all their funding on the first term's attendance). If that happened to me and it was the only choice I would be on teh phone to the Head of Faculty every week till someone switched courses or dropped out... worst case scenario.

It is a foundation year, which is linked to a Paramedic Science Degree. The degree is only in a few Universities the one she wants to do the degree in a fairly local. All the others are hundreds of miles away so her options are very limited. That is good advice regarding drop-outs and will bear that in mind should we hit a brick wall! I already have names of all the faculty heads so will try and find direct numbers too.

[Petrolhead_Rich]

This happened to a number of us on my FD course, we all just turned up on the day of enrolment and said we had forgotten our UCAS letters, turned out the university did not have a list either and was just making a note of our addresses from our letters, or in our case, just getting us to write them down for them.

Probably not the best approach, but it worked for a number of us...

Edit - I also bimbled into a number of lectures with a few friends, and got handed coursework etc to complete, the lecturer even commented how easy it would be to scam your way onto a degree course as they reguarly have to add people onto the register/lists etc!

If you act like your supposed to be there, people treat you like your should be....

Edited by Petrolhead_Rich on Tuesday 7th September 10:00

[H_Kan]

Not what you'll want to here but sometimes there is very little that can be done. Somebody I know had an offer from Kings a couple of years back.

They missed their offer by 1 grade and KCL told him they wouldn't accept that. He was quite shocked by the marks in one of his papers and requested a remark. This came back as an A, so I'm guessing they must have missed the marks for 1 question etc as it went up by quite a lot. However by this time the uni had filled the course and wouldn't accept him, despite none of this being his fault.

Worst case scenario, I'd imagine they would be able to ensure that she was given a place for next year.

[JakeS]

H_Kan said:

Not what you'll want to here but sometimes there is very little that can be done. Somebody I know had an offer from Kings a couple of years back.

They missed their offer by 1 grade and KCL told him they wouldn't accept that. He was quite shocked by the marks in one of his papers and requested a remark. This came back as an A, so I'm guessing they must have missed the marks for 1 question etc as it went up by quite a lot. However by this time the uni had filled the course and wouldn't accept him, despite none of this being his fault.

Worst case scenario, I'd imagine they would be able to ensure that she was given a place for next year.

The thing is she was given an unconditional offer which means that she had been given a place irrespective of what grades she had. They have then said she does not have a place. They have essentially gone back on what they have said.

[plg]

H_Kan said:

Not what you'll want to here but sometimes there is very little that can be done. Somebody I know had an offer from Kings a couple of years back.

They missed their offer by 1 grade and KCL told him they wouldn't accept that. He was quite shocked by the marks in one of his papers and requested a remark. This came back as an A, so I'm guessing they must have missed the marks for 1 question etc as it went up by quite a lot. However by this time the uni had filled the course and wouldn't accept him, despite none of this being his fault.

Worst case scenario, I'd imagine they would be able to ensure that she was given a place for next year.

That is slightly different - your reference is someone who missed their grades against offer, at the time of the results. Unis can only judge on the information of results given, they can't be expected to hold places open whilst people get remarking done...

[H_Kan]

plg said:

H_Kan said:

Not what you'll want to here but sometimes there is very little that can be done. Somebody I know had an offer from Kings a couple of years back.

They missed their offer by 1 grade and KCL told him they wouldn't accept that. He was quite shocked by the marks in one of his papers and requested a remark. This came back as an A, so I'm guessing they must have missed the marks for 1 question etc as it went up by quite a lot. However by this time the uni had filled the course and wouldn't accept him, despite none of this being his fault.

Worst case scenario, I'd imagine they would be able to ensure that she was given a place for next year.

That is slightly different - your reference is someone who missed their grades against offer, at the time of the results. Unis can only judge on the information of results given, they can't be expected to hold places open whilst people get remarking done...

I'm not saying the situation is the same, merely that the OP should be prepared that they may be very inflexible.

Either way, the simple fact is that through no fault of her own, she is entitled to a place but they are all full up. Much the same as the chap I knew, who was entitled to a place, but they had all filled up. Different circumstances, same outcome.

[K77 CTR]

Which uni has she applied to? In worst case scenario, could she apply to the local ambulance service and work her way up, they would then fund the course and she would be earning at the same time!

[JakeS]

K77 CTR said:

Which uni has she applied to? In worst case scenario, could she apply to the local ambulance service and work her way up, they would then fund the course and she would be earning at the same time!

Looked at that route the local ambulance service only recruits from the Uni course now. The course is funded by the Service and run by them but they are given a qualification which means it can be used anywhere in the world.

[IainT]

Did she send in / confirm the acceptance of the unconditional offer? An offer is just that and has to be accepted...

Hope she gets it sorted out.

[JakeS]

IainT said:

Did she send in / confirm the acceptance of the unconditional offer? An offer is just that and has to be accepted...

Hope she gets it sorted out.

yea accepted on the 2nd May 2010 which UCAS have confirmed for us too. We are still waiting for the head of the faculty to call us back which she said she would do before midday so just a waiting game until then.

[K77 CTR]

JakeS said:

Looked at that route the local ambulance service only recruits from the Uni course now. The course is funded by the Service and run by them but they are given a qualification which means it can be used anywhere in the world.

Which service is it? I work for South Central and they are always recruiting for emergency care assistants, I know this is not what she wants to do but it will give her an insight into the job, give her a wage and she could either reapply next year or stay in the service a couple if years and they would then fund the course. Just an option!

[gareth.e]

Unis seem to fk up a fair amount... I 'graduated' a month or so ago with a 2:2 despite I did in fact get a 2:1...

Even when I called up on the fact one of my modules had been replaced with a ub300 accredited module I was given little explanation why and brushed off. When I contacted my module tutor off my own back, I ended up finding out they had 'forgot' to mark my coursework for an entire module!

If I didn't investigate myself I would have kept the fking 2:2!