Last academic year I missed my offer to study at Oxford. It was a very tough year for me. My dad had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer (which has no cure) just at the end of year 12. He was on chemotherapy, in and out of hospital for the entirely of year 13. Then, during A-level exams, he was admitted to hospital for a major surgery. Unfortunately, cancer still did what it does and he passed away recently, 22nd of November.
I recently found out that there’s a procedure for students like myself which my school didn’t follow. Between exams being conducted and publication of results, your school can apply for special consideration to the exam board (AQA, in my case). This is for students who experienced disruption just before or during exams which directly affected their performance.
Depending on how you interpret my circumstances, I would’ve been eligible for a 4%-5% increase in marks, which would’ve turned my 2 Bs into As. This would’ve been enough to meet my offer. My school was fully aware of my situation and we desperately asked them if there was anything we could do, and they said nothing. We only discovered this was an option and that I was eligible for it now, and it’s too late.
I feel utterly destroyed. I blamed myself a lot for missing my offer, naturally, since you can always work harder. Guilt is an awful feeling, but this resentment feels much worse. Knowing there was something that could’ve been done and it wasn’t. This is only one of the multiple issues my school had, and it really feels like the last straw.