BSc Degree – General Queries

The costs will be mentoring fees (which depends on what the individual mentor charges) + submission fee which will probably be somewhere between GBP 250 – 275 for Period 35.

It is often better to invest in a decent mentor as if you fail you will have to pay another submission fee and a resubmission can involve extra stress (particularly if it goes to the wire of a 3rd and final attempt – not only 3 attempts are allowed). However ensure the mentor does not provide templates as this can end up with a referral to the Academic Conduct Office for malpractice or misconduct as all work must be your own (and this could mean a penalty resubmission fee of GBP 550 and notification of this to ACCA)

That should be fine provided (a) you never opted out of the OBU programmes as it would now be too late for you to opt in and (b) you have not exceeded the 10 year time limit which starts from passing your first exam (or receiving your first exemption), by the date of the submission period you submit in.

I presume it says “if appropriate” because say for example if you were getting a personal reference from an individual who was not in a company they would have no letterhead to use. However itt is assumed that otherwise a company or institution would have a professional letterhead. So I don’t understand why you couldn’t get the references on proper letterheads in the first place as this would have strengthened your application.

My understanding is that the bursaries are intended for cases of extreme hardship (otherwise everyone would apply) so each case has to be assessed. Without documentary proof i.e. letterheads so that companies could be checked and facts verified, the application would look odd.

By the way it seems that in some parts of the world RAPs based on fictitious companies accompanied by ‘authorisation letters ‘ on dubious letterheads have been submitted and OBU policy is to reject these and formally discipline the students; so the policy in your case seems to be an extension of this and probably the reason they have said they will not accept a future application.

Please see our homepage http://www.opentuition.com/obu where there are articles and advice on the subjects you raise including a list of topics. Also you should familiarise yourself with the Information Pack with the latest rules and submission information as the topic titles have changed slightly recently.

The way it works is that you can only submit if your mentor is listed. You need to register as a mentee on the OBU mentoring website and you will find a list of current mentors. When uploading your work only the mentors listed appear in the drop-down box you have to select

Please choose very carefully….It is as well to check a month or two before submission that your mentor is still listed (OBU is cracking down on mentors who are breaching university regulations and supplying templates – which mentors say are merely ‘samples’ and aiding students far beyond what is prescribed in the Information pack – as this is considered to be a form of cheating and banning such mentors).

Hi Gabriella

Should you be unfortunate enough to be affected by a delisted mentor you are normally permitted to forward your files direct to the ACCA BSc Office ( after contacting them beforehand). However worry about it nearer the time.

There are a number of good mentors in the UK and the Far East. For Pakistan you could try the Virtual Mentoring Network. We are normally unable to vouch for the reputation of individual mentors apart from those at the Learning Luminarium whose pass rates we have checked out and we believe the testimonials posted by students on ‘Advancing the quality’ and our results forums in relation to them to be genuine. (My marker friend also recommends Bhanavi Shanmugabalan from Singapore too).

Generally you get what you pay for (as I know myself as I mentor MBA students). If you want quality it comes at a price and just as you would pay for any professional services – if you pay peanuts you can expect to get a monkey!

The degree certificate. This is sent out months later.