The Student Room Group

I messed up with the PAT booking

guys am i cooked (PAT booking)

so i’m supposed to be sitting the PAT for oxford engineering. i applied before the deadline and i filled out the scheduling form for pearson vue and everything as i had to book directly because i had access arrangements. my condition is quite unique so after i booked it, i assumed i’d receive test booking confirmation once they’ve confirmed my access arrangements.

well, today the oxford admissions team on the oxford admissions test site let me know that pearson said that i’ll be receiving 3 hours on the PAT for my rest breaks due to my spinal injury from last year. i was like cool, do you happen to know when i’ll receive an email back about my admissions centre? and realised that i had never received further correspondence.

i contacted pearson vue customer services and they told me that i didn’t have an appointment despite me filling in the form linked on the PAT website for access arrangement bookings. i can’t help but hate myself. i sent them all the information i had via email and they told me that they’ll investigate for me. i also emailed my college about this and messaged back the oxford admission tests team on the site about this too. but it’s a friday, tomorrow is the weekend and with 10 more days to go i feel like i just failed myself for not catching this sooner.

i filled in the form before the deadline, my access arrangements were only confirmed today and i never received any test booking confirmation and i didn’t doubt it until now either because i was under the impression that it’ll be confirmed after my access arrangements are.

i worked so hard and this was my gap year application after suffering a spinal injury last year. does anyone have any guidance or advice? will they understand my circumstances and let me sit the test or is it looking unlikely? i practiced so hard for this test.

apologies if i sound nervous, probably because i am, i can’t help but think that i’ve just lost my chance when i’ve been averaging well in pat past papers.

i want to reiterate that i DID book it but for some reason there is no appointment?? what do i do
Unfortunately it sounds like you have already done everything that you can. Oxford admissions can consider exceptional circumstances for admissions exams, so your best bet is to try and get confirmation from Pearson that something went wrong at their end and the delay that caused you to miss the deadline is their fault. Other than that, the only other thing to do is phone Pearson daily and push them to get you the PAT test as soon as possible, try to be flexible with your test center and your chances of getting a cancellation slot increases considerably. If you can do the test ASAP and you are just a few days past the admissions date with a good reason beyond your own control then you might find there would be some leniency.
This is the first year Oxford is using Pearson Vue and they will be keen to get any feedback on applicants experiences with admission tests. If there are problems with the registration form then they will want to know about it. I would send a written statement about this to your College if you have not already done so, with details of dates, emails etc. They may be able to push Pearson on this as well. Good luck!

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