Possible mitigating circumstance?

[goatenthusiast12]

Hello. I have recently finished my first year and I'm awaiting for my final grade(s) after having finished my coursework. The coursework has a 75% weightage and our MCQs have the remaining 25% weightage. I am satisfied with my coursework and have scored excellent in all my MCQs except contract law. I don't really know what went wrong there. However, after completing the MCQs I was diagnosed with moderately severe hearing loss. Consequently, I now wear a hearing aid.

I had completed my first year without being able to hear properly in lectures and seminars. Could I use my hearing loss as a mitigating circumstance to expand on the reason as to why I had scored bad on my contract MCQ? I'm not sure if it'll be considered since my MCQ grade is only poor in contract and not the other remaining modules.

Additionally, if it can be considered as a mitigating circumstance, then should I inform my university first so that it can be kept in their records? I'm not really sure how this works. Any insight and information would be helpful. Thanks!

Please excuse any grammatical mistakes. English is not my first language.

 

[Jessica Booker]

I think the issue here is that it doesn’t apply to all your grades - only one module. You would need to have some form of explanation as to why is particularly impacted that course over the others.

You should speak to your university if there is any reasonable adjustments you need going forward to either lectures or assessments.

You could speak to your personal tutor to see if they could provide a reference for you that would explain the lower module result for contract too.

 

[goatenthusiast12]

I too believe that this would be an issue as my grades are not consistently bad. Nevertheless, the university should take my hearing impairment into consideration as it was a huge drawback and I am merely lucky that it did not impact the rest of my modules. I have emailed the disability department of my university, hopefully they will understand. Thank you.

 

[dinoorchestra]

Hey! I have been 100% deaf from birth, hearing with two cochlea implants instead of my ears, and maybe I am able to give you some guidance here. I hope this helps!

For your future studies: I agree that your university should take your hearing impairment into consideration and its good that you are already in touch with them: make sure you ask them to provide you with support that will help you mitigate your disability in the future. For me it is subtitling on online content and using my special microfone in class, as that is all I need to pursue my studies effectively, but there is also notetakers provided by the university for example - research a little bit and figure out what will allow you to continue your studies without any mitigation and request that support to be provided to you! I also suggest thinking about whether you'd benefit from additional time in exams.

For your current grades and applications: I think you should definitely mention that you werent able to hear properly when applying. It is always good to provide context to a performance that might have been much better otherwise and just because your other modules were better, that does not mean that you have not been impacted by that change in your circumstances at all! I think it rather shows that despite all you worked very diligently and still achieved very good results across all your other modules because you do care about what you are doing (I am saying that from my experience).

Let me know if I can answer any more questions for you!

 

[goatenthusiast12]

Hi @dinoorchestra! Thank you for the advice. I'll definitely take this into consideration.

I have received a reply from my university's disability support department this morning and they stated that they cannot 'revisit' my grades for the specific module as I had not informed them prior to the MCQ (weird, because I was only made aware of my condition a month after my MCQs had ended). However, I informed them that I did not want them to review my grades again, but rather to make a note in their records about my situation so that I can use it as evidence for my poor performance when applying to firms.

In case my university rejects my reasoning, would law firms consider my mitigating circumstances even if I don't have any proof of such from the university?

 

[Jessica Booker]

Hi @dinoorchestra! Thank you for the advice. I'll definitely take this into consideration.

I have received a reply from my university's disability support department this morning and they stated that they cannot 'revisit' my grades for the specific module as I had not informed them prior to the MCQ (weird, because I was only made aware of my condition a month after my MCQs had ended). However, I informed them that I did not want them to review my grades again, but rather to make a note in their records about my situation so that I can use it as evidence for my poor performance when applying to firms.

In case my university rejects my reasoning, would law firms consider my mitigating circumstances even if I don't have any proof of such from the university?

I am not surprised to hear the university's response - it is very common for them not to be able to apply such considerations retrospectively, as it is difficult/impossible for them to quantify how it impacted your studies.

I would speak to your personal tutor at the university. They will be the one most likely to provide a law firm with a reference for you regarding your academic performance/contributions to university life, and so they really need to be the one who is aware of the circumstances. They can reference such circumstances in any academic reference provided by the university.

Also it sounds like if your MCT was only 25% weighting, there might not be too much of an issue here. Do you know your overall module grade for contract? You wouldn't need to provide a breakdown of the essay grade and the MCT grade for contract, just an overall grade. And if this is still a good grade overall, you night not even need to claim the mitigating circumstances (although you could still reference them in your application).

 

[goatenthusiast12]

If all else fails I'll either email or meet my professor and let her know about it.

I've not received my overall module grade as of yet. I do think I did well in my coursework so I hope that my MCQ score does not drag down the rest of my grade. I'd still like to claim mitigating circumstances regardless of what my final grade may be.

 

[Jessica Booker]

If all else fails I'll either email or meet my professor and let her know about it.

I've not received my overall module grade as of yet. I do think I did well in my coursework so I hope that my MCQ score does not drag down the rest of my grade. I'd still like to claim mitigating circumstances regardless of what my final grade may be.

You only need to claim mitigating circumstances to law firms if your grades are lower than a 2.1 - you don't need to claim them otherwise.

You can reference the circumstances, and in your situation, it will be important to do so anyway in case you need any reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process too.

However, you may want to hold off speaking to your professor until you have your grades though, as ultimately, you could be worrying about nothing here - you are not even certain that your contract module will be a low grade.

 

[goatenthusiast12]

You only need to claim mitigating circumstances to law firms if your grades are lower than a 2.1 - you don't need to claim them otherwise.

You can reference the circumstances, and in your situation, it will be important to do so anyway in case you need any reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process too.

However, you may want to hold off speaking to your professor until you have your grades though, as ultimately, you could be worrying about nothing here - you are not even certain that your contract module will be a low grade.

Got it. However, I'd like to prepare myself in case I receive lower than a 2.1.
I have exchanged emails with my university over the past 2 days and I have been told that my circumstances can no longer be taken into account as I was (3 months) too late to inform them of my disability, and thus revisiting past assessments is not possible. I think this is unfair as students who have newly gotten diagnosed still don't know how to exactly navigate life with their disability, and it also does not always immediately occur to us that our disability has affected our studies. I only recently came to know that the disability department in my university offers help to students with hearing impairment.

In my previous email, I had requested the university to include my mitigating circumstances in their records so that I could use it as evidence when applying to law firms. In response, they stated that the university 'does not add any caveat to any documents'. I'm not entirely sure, but it seems like they are saying that it is not their responsibility to communicate this information to potential employers. I'm not really well aware of how this whole process works, so maybe I'm in the wrong here for expecting them to put my hearing impairment in their records.
It seems unlikely that my university will accept my reasoning. So here comes my next question, can I still claim mitigating circumstances for my MCQ to law firms despite not having university records that confirm it? I have medical records that confirm my hearing impairment, would this be enough?

 

[Jessica Booker]

Got it. However, I'd like to prepare myself in case I receive lower than a 2.1.
I have exchanged emails with my university over the past 2 days and I have been told that my circumstances can no longer be taken into account as I was (3 months) too late to inform them of my disability, and thus revisiting past assessments is not possible. I think this is unfair as students who have newly gotten diagnosed still don't know how to exactly navigate life with their disability, and it also does not always immediately occur to us that our disability has affected our studies. I only recently came to know that the disability department in my university offers help to students with hearing impairment.

In my previous email, I had requested the university to include my mitigating circumstances in their records so that I could use it as evidence when applying to law firms. In response, they stated that the university 'does not add any caveat to any documents'. I'm not entirely sure, but it seems like they are saying that it is not their responsibility to communicate this information to potential employers. I'm not really well aware of how this whole process works, so maybe I'm in the wrong here for expecting them to put my hearing impairment in their records.
It seems unlikely that my university will accept my reasoning. So here comes my next question, can I still claim mitigating circumstances for my MCQ to law firms despite not having university records that confirm it? I have medical records that confirm my hearing impairment, would this be enough?

I know you may see it as unfair but they cannot retrospectively apply circumstances - this is exceptionally common in most universities as they cannot determine how the circumstances impacted you.

You are talking to the wrong department about a reference. The disability/accessibility office does not provide a reference for you, your personal tutor/academic department does. Therefore you need to speak to them about whether they can write a reference for you that would include those details.

Yes - you can claim the mitigating circumstances without any evidence. However, the question is going to be how this impacted only one MCQ test and not all your other grades.

 

[goatenthusiast12]

Hello @Jessica Booker.

Coming back to this thread as I have scored an overall 2.1 for my first year, albeit a low 2.1. I scored fairly well in my contract coursework but as expected, my low MCQ grades dragged a possible 1st or 2.1 in contract to a high 2.2 instead. Although I am glad that I have managed to score a 2.1 in my first year, I am not as happy with contract being 2.2. My question is whether you still recommend I contact my contract professor and let her know of my situation so that she can put it in my record to explain the 2.2. You previously mentioned that I don't need to rely on my mitigating circumstances if I score a 2.1, but I'm confused on whether you meant a 2.1 in my contract module or 2.1 as my overall first year grade. I'm afraid that when it'll come to applying to vacation schemes and TCs, recruiters would individually look at my first year modules and strike me out based on my contract grade. If that's the case then I'd get in touch with my professor and see whether she can make any adjustments.

Thank you in advance.

 

[Jessica Booker]

Yes - you can speak to your professor/personal tutor about this. You’ll need to explain to them how you think not getting your diagnosis has impacted your studies and particularly impacted certain modules/assessments. It’s probably worthwhile meeting with them to discuss this rather relying back and forth in email.