Concerned that University has Too Low Standards

You are at university. For the majority of people that is proof enough that you are not a complete idiot.

A lot of my assesments at uni rely more on the errors I make than what I get right, but that is a judge of the kind of student that you are. If you are good enough to not make the mistakes that your coursemates undoubtedly do, then surely it is proof you are a strong student.

If you're worried about how you're being assessed compared to more 'prestigious' institutions, maybe you need to consider why you didn't choose one of them, if you did, why you didn't make it, and whether you can move to one of them for a masters program to confirm how "awesometastic" a student you are.

OP

A - You are an arrogant git
B - Proper universities have higher standards I can assure you having seen work from Sheff Hallam and compared it to Durham.

People can get into some universities/courses with like 150 UCAS points. For some other people, getting AAA is often the bare minimum for them to even be considered.


OP, I would not advise planning to stick with your university and do a master's afterwards. There are so many factors that play in deciding to do an MA and doing it solely to boost career prospects or for the 'prestige' of it is something you shouldn't do. For all you know you might not want to study again after all when your 3 undergrad years are done.

Transfering to a better institution is one option, dropping out and reapplying is another. For the latter I guess it depends how good your A-levels are. I have no idea what your chances are of transfering to a university like Sheffield or Bristol though.

Remember there is no central body that dictates how universities should work and decide upon their assessment methods and course content. Many universities will have different procedures from each other. Go ahead and criticise me because I am only doing one UG course and thus not experiencing other universities, but honestly is a course requiring it's applicants to get 160 UCAS points going to be harder than one requiring people get AAA?

To be fair though, you do have to consider the popularity of the subject, not just it's 'difficulty'. Sociology is seen by many as an easy subject, but Lancaster University's average UCAS tariff for Sociology last year was 360 (AAA).

He's doing computing and posted this same question in Feb pretty much.

Competition does play a part but the more 'respected' (and traditionally more difficult) courses have higher entry standards.

Competition does play a part but the more 'respected' (and traditionally more difficult) courses have higher entry standards.

Also note that the UCAS tarrifs also take AS levels into account, so 360 points is certainly not going to be around AAA. For AAA I'd say you are looking around 440-450 points (though that's a bit of a guess).

Gentlemen, thanks for taking the time to read and possibly reply.

My situation is this: I'm getting awesome grades, firsts with a few upper second's, but I'm not convinced that the First and Upper Second's really reflect on me being an awesometastic student. Frankly, I think they were far too easy and that the marking scheme for my exams and courseworks was of way too low a standard.

One of my courseworks was graded in such a way that I received 90% for just "ticking the right boxes". The entire thing was made so that I wasn't being graded on how good a student I was, but rather how many failures I didn't make.

I'm studying at the University of Glamorgan which is hardly prestigious, and I'm wondering if this can possibly be the same way they do it in the high-flyers like Bristol, Cambridge, Warwick or Sheffield.

I want my grades to be some serious proof of intelligence rather than proof of not being pants-on-head retarded. Can anyone confirm or deny that the same general marking scheme is being used for other, more challenging universities, where some or most courseworks are given high marks for simply not being stupid?

I hope I haven't made this too confusing to read. Thanks for your time reading it through.

Coursework and exam scripts are marked by the lecturer running the module

Not always true. I have a programming module with 133 students; to have the lecturer mark 133 exam scripts is just unreasonable, given that he's also a researcher. I know of a course with over 800 students on it too.

but there is also a process of second and external marking.

Not always true either. It's not always viable to do this, due to time, financial and HR constraints.

Your results also need to be seen in the context of your subject; it is generally easier to score marks about 80 in Science / Technology courses rather than Arts and Humanities.

Well, that's a massive generalisation, but on the same note, seems to go against the 'sciences being real degrees' generalisation. So really, would you care to elaborate on this? As an example, although granted it's not degree-level, I got A*s on all my English/Artsy courseworks through high school, but had to revise the technical content for the sciences at GCSE and A-Level.

If you wish to transfer, you could try contacting some departments to see if they are willing to accept you, but there are no guarantees.