Decision Report 201404475

Summary

Mr C appealed against the university's decision not to offer him a place. He said that he had met the conditions of his offer, but the university had used optional courses to determine his final mark for entry. He complained that this was not stipulated in his offer and when he phoned the admissions office to ask, he was given wrong information and staff there treated him badly and did not respond to the issues he raised. The university decided he had not established grounds for an appeal and considered his complaints about the unfair treatment he felt he had received. He said he had been harassed by members of staff in the admissions office who had put the phone down on his call. The university investigated and did not uphold his complaints. Our investigation examined the university's consideration of his appeal and their investigation into his complaint, along with their procedures for handling admissions appeals and complaints. We found that Mr C's dissatisfaction was based on his belief that the university had made a wrong academic decision and concluded that the university had provided detailed explanations of their position and acted in line with their procedures, so we did not uphold his complaint.

Recommendations

We recommended that the university:

• consider how to re-word the terms of the conditions set to make clear what is expected when more than one course in a subject is taken.