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me too 🙁 I also received this email about this and I really needed the transcripts asap, but now I just wish that the ACO could approach me asap 🙁

mariamohi wrote:RAP is the entire Research and analysis project which includes Research report, SLS and other documents. So it isn’t clear whether you failed RR or SLS Martindeo.

Thanks I will wait and review the feedback. I’m just so shocked. My mentor was very pleased with the project giving great feedback for each iteration, said that my referencing was done correctly and that they style and composition was spot on. I put a lot of effort into the project.

I had read through prior period result threads and also noticed that there were cases where mentors had thought their mentee’s project was of a high standard but turned out failing. I also read the appeals process is basically a waste of time.

I just can’t understand how OBU has the mentorship programme but then it appears that their requirements and mentors opinions are not aligned. It begs the question of what kind of support OBU provides the mentors. I mean you not going to second guess your mentor as they are essentially the representative from OBU who is supposed to guide you. I trust my mentor completely as she obviously met the criteria to become one – she is listed on the OBU website as an active mentor and her credentials are beyond reproach. So I can’t understand how the opinion of a mentor and a marker can be so far apart.

Anyway, it is what it is. Nothing to do about it now

Congratulations to all who were successful!

mariamohi wrote:

martindeo wrote:

mariamohi wrote:RAP is the entire Research and analysis project which includes Research report, SLS and other documents. So it isn’t clear whether you failed RR or SLS Martindeo.

I have no idea, everything my mentor reviewed was given the all clear. To be honest if it is only 1 section or 1 part of the RAP that will be even more devastating as it would mean another 6 months and a full submission cost to remedy small part.

I wonder why it takes so long for everything. Basically 5.5 months to mark, then another 2 weeks to wait for the marking feedback, surely this can be provided in 1 go. At this point I’m not even sure I will resubmit. I am 3 exams short of full ACCA membership and I don’t know if I am willing to sacrifice so much time and money on this again.

The marking process comprises 3 stages and a review of every report that is failed. This also includes a review of some of the reports by external markers from other universities who ascertain that the standard is comparable with that required for UK degree as laid down by the regulator.

Reading 7,500 word reports and the 2,000 word SLS is far more time consuming than checking numbers and briefer written exam questions as with ACCA exams. There are no short cuts to this and the process is unlikely to change

Could you please provide your contact details, I would like to discuss with further with you as I received the same email as well.

Thanks!

Thank you for the detailed reply @GillianM. That is a very odd way to go. You mentioned that they would have been done at least a month ago, which is logical. It’s odd then that the email I received states the decision to fail me occurred on the 20th of September. Talk about last minute!

I’ve gotten over the initial shock of the fail grade, given that my mentor was very pleased with the project, and now want address whatever they’ve come up with ASAP to submit in P43.

Thank you for the advice, I will chase up with them. I am interested to see where I fell short. I hope the feedback isn’t ambiguous notes which don’t provide clear ways to improve.

martindeo wrote:y @GillianM. It’s odd then that the email I received states the decision to fail me occurred on the 20th of September. Talk about last minute!

Although the email says 20 September that would have been the date of the Exam Board Meeting and technically any result could be changed up to that point. [Though when a senor marker, I attended several EBMs and although they were a useful forum, as far as I am aware no marks were ever changed at the actual meeting – and the EBM is a bit of a formality in that respect]

Go through the feedback and check it accurately reflects your report – but bear in mind you cannot appeal against academic judgment – just because you obviously are unhappy with the result that does not mean that you can dispute it. However if it wrongly reflects what you have produced then you may have a case for appeal. I had 2 separate causes last session to query.

The first was very clear-cut: the T17 student had bee failed because it was alleged that they hadn’t addressed part of the topic title and discussed the company response. True, they didn’t actually have a section heading ‘Company response’ but we went through the report and highlighted about 1,000 words that referenced a company response. The student asked them how many words were needed for this aspect and sent in the highlighted version of his report – Result! His fail was overturned immediately.

Case number 2 [T19] – not only had the student not received his feedback even a week after the promised date but when it arrived it was appalling [and I felt the marker must have devoted all of about 15 mins total max reviewing his work and writing the feedback, which I found unacceptable because, of course, I know how much the marker is paid for doing this job and diligence is assumed]. The comment: ‘Your models do not adequately demonstrate the financial and operational consequences of the acquisition’ was repeated against Assessment Criteria 1,2 and 3 with one additional brief comment for the latter. Since all of my successful T19 students had used the same models [though they did different companies], as a mentor I was curious about which models the marker thought he should have used. I therefore suggested to the student that he contact Brookes and ask for more guidance on how to deal with feedback as both of us were at a loss on how to approach his resubmission. They came back a couple of days later having decided, after all, that his work did just about reach the criteria for a pass!

No it isn’t particularly popular but a topic I like, though I have only mentored 3 or 4 students for it.

The problem is you have to ensure that you are not just describing the risks but are evaluating them. Also they advise that you use internal documentation or the like [see Info Pack June 2021]. To be honest I think the best subject companies for T16 are banks – my students who used banks got higher grades and were able to draw on the CAMELS model and do some financial analysis as well as use a risk assessment matrix – so this helped countered the issue of the tendency for a T16 report to be more descriptive than evaluative.

Sounds a reasonable approach. Possibly your referencing wasn’t up to ‘scratch’ as that is a frequent cause of failure but it is probably pointless trying to speculate – see what the feedback says.

Number crunching is only relevant as a form of benchmarking and depends on the sector – banks since the financial crisis 2007/08 have to pass stress testing and the like and have to balance risky investments with more solid ones so that’s why they are important in that sector. However overall the risk assessment needs to be relevant to the sector and context. For example a power company would need to plan for power outages and balance its manpower and resources to be able to deal with extreme weather events whereas the latter would be relatively irrelevant in many other sectors

Guys how do you check your results

Thanks

Sorry for not getting back to you before now justmwas and your query ‘does my re-submission statement have to be 500 pages long [sic – but I think you mean words here!] since I cannot utilize most of my previous feedback for a new topic and organisation’

The Resubmission statement is actually intended to help you make an improved submission that is more likely to pass. In your particular circumstances you may take one of two approaches:

Either you state you are using a different company and therefore the previous feedback is not really applicable [so brief statement to this effect], or you could take what IMO is a better approach.

Namely, look at the previous feedback – does it say things like ‘you have not linked the models to the company strategies adequately’, ‘your evaluation is mostly descriptive and does not consider the factors that have influenced the trends’ etc. [or that sort of thing]? If so, it is important that you have considered these in the context of your new organisation so you could make the statement that although you have changed company, where relevant you have considered the feedback and how it might apply to your new company and have made changes such as …… [and set those out]

Remember the rationale for the statement is to help a student avoid failing again – it is not a penalty for failing but intended to make you appreciate previous mistakes so that you avoid repeating them!

Finally received the email that the Marker Feedback is available, only for the webpage to crash when trying to access it.

Anyone else have the same problem?