ROLLONFRIDAY STORY, 29TH FEBRUARY 2008
An end to the BPP madness. Please.
Ok, this is the last BPP madness story. But it seems the previous stories about insane exam rules and thoughtfully timed threats to withhold exam results have touched a raw nerve with students. RollOnFriday is proud to present just a selection of the emails received on this subject over the last week. Settle down with a coffee, work your way through see if you can spot the future Slaughter and May partner.
- Re: BPP Madness - BPP took my Company Act off me in an exam for the
same awful crime (vertical lines). After an hour, they then obviously
thought it was a bit harsh, so they gave me my book back and told me if I
tippexed them out, I could keep it. Bewildering!
- Re: BPP Madness - I am also currently a BPP LPC student and have
another story to add to the numerous ones I'm sure you already have about
their ridiculous exam policy. I had, mistakenly at the start of my BPP
course, folded down the corners of 2 pages of my solicitors' accounts
manual. Consequently realising how anal the exam rules are I made sure I
folded them back before the exam and flattened them so you could only see
the crease. It was 2 pages I thought, and just a crease - surely nothing
would be said. But oh no. During the exam my book was examined and the 2
creases found. I was consequently told in the middle of my exam to fold over
the corner of EVERY SINGLE PAGE of my book (over 150 pages) and then to fold
it back so that each page had the same crease on it!! Absolutely ridiculous!
So glad that I had to spent 10 minutes of valuable exam time on such a
pointless task. BPP really need to sort themselves out.
- Re: BPP madness - you don't know the half of it lads. Tutors telling
us 'such and such' will definitely crop up as they had inside knowledge (it
didn't). Arrow tabs not allowed, but some girl showing up with rectangular
tabs cut into the shape of letters is fine (she had a print out email from
central office saying it was ok as it wasn't specifically banned-fair play
to her for being inventive but it asks the question what their problem with
arrows is). Invigilators bollocking people for having their (permitted) books
open before exams as it was 'contrary to exam conditions'. This pearler from
BPP's own exam guidance: "A 'circle' can in fact look more like a square or
rectangle and is still permitted but circling of words must be a single or
few words and NOT a whole section."
- Re: BPP Madness - In my GDL year, my exam results were withheld
thanks to an overdue library fine of £10 - the course cost over £5000! They
had sent emails out to all the students to remind them, but I never got my
email because they got my email address wrong. And then after I went in to
pay, I couldn't pick up my results, even though the letters were sitting
there, because they had to post them! Bloody ridiculous.
- Re: BPP Madness - Of course if they try and withhold exam results at
BPP (or anywhere else), a simple data protection request will sort you out
with them. Hours of fun! We annoyed my University with this no end when I
was a sabbatical officer...
- Re: BPP Madness - I don't know how newsworthy this is but the queues
for the loos at BPP exams are horrific! The school tries to cram in as many
students into their exam halls as they can and it is impossible to use
restrooms before an exam because there will be queues of 50-odd people.
Another bugbear is that they make you sign a register before you enter the exam room which leads to a massive crush of people at the entrance, clammering for the ten or so sheets with names on and (usually) the only pen going. This is just too much, especially with the fees charged and the amount of stress inevitable before an exam. Decent academic institutions, like where I did my degree, will have invigilators go round and tick people's names off a list from the info on their ID cards placed on the desk. Not BPP though. Their invigilators are more preoccupied with who is going to do the next Starbucks run.
Too much stress is being caused right before you sit down to write your exam, whether it is by fighting through crowds to get to the register, fighting through register-mad crowds to get to your seat, queueing forever to get to the loo, making you late for the exam or by stressing about your vertical lines. We've all sat a lot of exams by this point and people tend to agree that these are the worst organised ones yet!
Glad to see you're publicising this behaviour, BPP needs to fix this and make exams un more smoothly.
Last exam is BLP on Tuesday. Thank God. - Re: BPP Madness - The BPP exam madness is nothing compared to their
bonkers policy on absences. When I was there (2 years ago) anyone who needed
to miss a lecture or class had to fill in a form and provide supporting
evidence for their absence. When my friend's grandfather died he duly
filled in the form and handed it to the Course Director. There must be an
awful lot of law students going around making up stories about their
grandparents dying to miss a commercial property class because my friend was
asked to produce the death certificate to support his absence form.
- And finally: Re: BPP Madness - As a current BPP LPC student I have to say that all these people who are moaning about vertical lines and the wrong shaped tabs have nothing to complain about. From the very beginning of the course it has been made clear what can and cannot be done to statute books, but some people are too stupid to listen to these instructions. Would you want a lawyer who couldn't follow simple instructions? I know I wouldn't. These people should have had their books taken away and in an ideal world they should have been booted out of the exam hall.
Congratulations to the sender of the final email. Your partnership awaits.