'Special Consideration'

Hello!

I was wondering if any of you would know whether universities would ever care, on results day, to what sort of school one went to? As in if I slightly miss my entry requirements? Would they care at all if I have gone to a 2290/3123 ranked school with the only thing propping it up being attendance with 5 stars?

Have you gotten your referee to mention all of the factors in your spoiler in your reference?

The head of year is a very proud person and I made the mistake of mentioning the school's ranking once... it did not go well.

No, there was no mention of that in my reference, sadly. She is also off on maternity leave, in fact... the head of year replacement is also off so we don't even have a head of year anymore.

Thank you for your reply!

If theres anyone left at your school who could mention the factors to the university it could help, otherwise unless the universities you have applied to give contextual offers off of rankings then it probably will have no effect, sorry.

Hello!

I was wondering if any of you would know whether universities would ever care, on results day, to what sort of school one went to? As in if I slightly miss my entry requirements? Would they care at all if I have gone to a 2290/3123 ranked school with the only thing propping it up being attendance with 5 stars?

The uni won't care about the ranking - if they do care, they can look it up themselves so they don't need you to tell them.

They may care about the missing teachers and issues you've had. However, you need someone at the school to tell them or verify what you're saying. Anyone can make up rubbish in order to try to get sympathy, and unfortunately people have tried lying before so unis can be quite strict now. If there is anyone at the school who can verify it then tell the uni asap.

Hmm... I suppose not. Welp, guess I was just dealt a very bad hand then.

Sorry, I have actually been trying to reply to this for a while now, but due to technical issues I've started and lost 2 posts already. Then I've been busy with work - and my job comes first because that makes me happy and pays the bills; TSR just annoys me and stresses me out.

If you have a teacher who has taught you that is willing to do it, that should be fine. They can explain that the higher levels of staff are all off anyway. It would be unfair for a uni to expect you to use someone who doesn't exist.

The uni will need to know who sent the statement, and it would need to come from a registered school email address or be sent on headed paper. If not, you could have got your best friend to write it (again, not directing this at you personally, but someone probably has tried this in the past). The uni may then want to contact that person at school. Depending on the eamil system used by school it is possible that all emails received can be read (I would have thought unlikely, but it depends how cynical the school are). If the uni phone they would explain who they are, and if the teacher isn't available they may leave a message.
You can't really ask the uni not to contact the teacher to verify as it starts to look more suspicious.

If you google the school you might find some articles to prove the school isn't amazing - I've found one that shows the school is significantly worse in 2015 compared to 2014 and 2013. This will help demonstrate the school environment. You might want to mention that although the most recent Ofstead report indicated the school was "good", but this was from 2014 when the school was better. The pupil:teacher ratio at the school does demonstrate that you are correct that teachers are disappearing, so might be a good thing to mention.

It is hugely appreciated that you did reply! Thank you very much for not giving up in replying.

It is also great that your work is actually a source of happiness; that's definitely something to be envied. I do hope my topic wasn't such a source for annoyance though =p

There still is the head of 6th form, but he is yet another proud person.. although in the end, surely they would believe a head of department with decades of experience and with plenty of responsibilities in the school.

It is likely that all emails can be read but I doubt there's anyone supervising all outgoing staff emails to non-school email addresses.

The university phoning would certainly be an issue (for the teacher), but do you think there would be any way to arrange for some sort of confirmation email to be sent by the teacher? How would I go about commencing communication with the university; email them and ask if they would be willing to read a teacher's email concerning my circumstances? List some Ofstead statistics? How would I explain to them that most of the upper ranks in the school are too proud/hostile to the fact that the school's gone downhill fast? Would it help to mention I only moved to the UK last year?

Thank you for the idea; I did not think of using that graph too. Might I ask if you used the birmingham mail to find the school or some other source?

Again, thank you very much for your time. This has restored some faith in me considering I'll have to sit the A levels with next to no school preparation in but a week.