How important is your attendance?

ruthiepooos

I've just had tutorial and the teacher said I had 80% attendence for this year so I have been to 530 out of 620 lessons :redface:

would this be bad for university application? I did really well in january exams with an a in chemistry and 100% in law and I want to go on to do law at university-could my attendance be a reason to reject me?

but...how would the university know your attendance anyway? it's your grades they will look at, and your reference, but even if your teacher put 80% attendance in the reference it doesn't sound bad, especially if you're getting As anyway.

Reply 2

Yeah firstly, 80% attendance is excellent in my opinion (compared to my school days anyhow lol). And secondly, universities do not get to see your attendance.

Reply 3

mobb_theprequel

ruthiepooos

I've just had tutorial and the teacher said I had 80% attendence for this year so I have been to 530 out of 620 lessons :redface:

would this be bad for university application? I did really well in january exams with an a in chemistry and 100% in law and I want to go on to do law at university-could my attendance be a reason to reject me?

Even if your attendance is dire, which it isn't particularly - at my school, 80pc is considered the lower bounds for acceptable attendance - teachers are more or less forbidden from deriding you in the reference. No mention was made of attendance on my reference (which, incidentally, was also for law, albeit a little bit worse than your own at 78pc for L6).

It's advisable to make sure that your attendance is good towards the end of the L6, and to get your UCAS application off early. If you're prone to swinging the lead with regards to sickies, chronically abusing the signing-out book, and turning up late on the odd few occasions you do bother to turn up - then submitting your form in September of U6 effectively puts you beyond the axeman's reach.

Reply 4

Xanthe

1

80% is not a good attendance rate. However, you're tutor probably won't include the exact figure and is more likely to quote something like "...has a very good attendanace and punctuality rate" or something like that on your UCAS reference.

Reply 5

Elles

17

NikNak

And secondly, universities do not get to see your attendance.

it was my 6th form's policy to comment on attendence in the ref. as it's something most universities are interested in apparently (indication of students more likely to be less motivated/drop out/cost them money etc?). so i imagine most educational references might mention it.

saying that, I think just a broad comment was made & 80% was the cut off point of acceptable for us..& then your parents were automatically contacted.

why you miss lessons might be something to consider? as well as perhaps trying to impress your tutor with a improved attendence before they write your reference.. :wink:

Reply 6

_poptart_

2

It depends what the person who writes your references is like. They may choose to say that you arent very good at attendance and so in that way the unis may be put off. But I think the main thing they care about is your grades; they're the things that determine whether you can go to uni or not.... but saying that try to go to school a bit more lol :smile:

Reply 7

sparklyglitter

10

On my reference from my English teacher she put that my attendance was terrible in first year(which it was but it's not like it harmed me because I got a B...)...but my progress tutor didn't include it in my final UCAS statement.Sometimes unis are a bit suspicious of references that don't include information about attendance but I didn't get any rejections so...

Reply 8

Elles

it was my 6th form's policy to comment on attendence in the ref. as it's something most universities are interested in apparently (indication of students more likely to be less motivated/drop out/cost them money etc?). so i imagine most educational references might mention it.

I was told that they are not allowed to mention anything which may be seen in a bad sense on your reference. If your attendance was poor then it just wouldn't be mentioned. However, 80% is dam good attendance for a sixth form college....I think I managed to get to about 50% of mine lol.

Reply 9

Beekeeper

*100% attendance in 2 years* literally... :rolleyes:

Reply 10

rmyl

i've not had great attendance, can't see why though as i go to most lessons.
our college has this thing about pointing out to us that they've done a study on attendance and found that there is a direct correlation between attendance and grades attained by the student. hmmm, doesn't always apply but i can see where they're coming from

Reply 11

Elles

17

NikNak

I was told that they are not allowed to mention anything which may be seen in a bad sense on your reference.

tis a reference! if anything they have a duty (to that student, the university & prospective students they might want to send there..) to be honest.

so, even if an individual tutor might not want to write outright negative comments but equivocation & omission can tell quite a lot... & i know of students who chose to take a GAP year because they saw no point in applying with the reference they'd be given.. :p:

meh.. my 6th form attendence was probably in the high 90s for everything over the 2 years - i guess that makes me boring? :cool:

Reply 12

Nellz

2

At my school it's part of our 'contract' that we have at least 90% attendance or terrrible things will happen - like a not so positive comment on the reference - at least thats what we were threatened with, i have no idea if they carried out the threat.

Reply 13

Elles

tis a reference! if anything they have a duty (to that student, the university & prospective students they might want to send there..) to be honest.

so, even if an individual tutor might not want to write outright negative comments but equivocation & omission can tell quite a lot... & i know of students who chose to take a GAP year because they saw no point in applying with the reference they'd be given.. :p:

meh.. my 6th form attendence was probably in the high 90s for everything over the 2 years - i guess that makes me boring? :cool:

Yeah I agree you can tell alot from what has been missed out of the reference. However, my college definitely wasn't allowed to write any negative comments. I assumed it was the same for all colleges.

Reply 14

Nellz

At my school it's part of our 'contract' that we have at least 90% attendance or terrrible things will happen - like a not so positive comment on the reference - at least thats what we were threatened with, i have no idea if they carried out the threat.

hehe yeah we used to get threatened to have our EMA stopped unless we turned up to all our tutorials. However, the teacher in charge was a real push-over, so you just go and sit in his office and moan into he gave in. :biggrin:

Reply 15

fabulous_darling

I read my reference and my attendance wasn't mentioned as far as I remember, although something regarding 'good punctuality' may have been there.. *ponders*

The attendence record wouldn't really harm me even if it was put in, seeing as I've only ever missed 2 school days in my entire school career. One of those days was when an immediate family member died, and the other was for his funeral a week later.

My parents are so strict when it comes to school.

Reply 16

LawQueen

OP

14

Agh well I plan to make the attendance better in the whole one day before exam leave and then after that-I didn't realise it had accumalated so much-I haven't been slacking in any subjects and did well in all the mocks :redface:

hopefully they wil just concentrate on my grades and references.

Reply 17

kirbz

10

Attendance isn't everything. All the material taught in lectures is provided online for us, and recently one of my lecturers pointed out that the people who did best in his units didn't necessarily turn up to all his lectures/labs.. simply because they've done what they can at home and only came in for what they didn't know.

Reply 18

Flicker