tribec

Hi

I have a son attending university in England in the Autumn, and wanted to let anyone else who is in this boat, know a surprising thing that came up whilst talking to the admissions officers.

We visited 4 universities in 4 days. My son will begin a 4 year M.Eng in Mechanical Engineering in September 2014. We currently live in Alberta, Canada. He was required to obtain over 85% in his Maths, Calculus & Physics and has done so. In fact, one of the universities offered him an unconditional place based on his grade 11 results. Since the final exams in January for his high school, he has now met the conditions for the others.

So armed with this, we visited and spoke with students, lecturers and admissions staff at each university. At 3 of the 4 universities, we were informed that we would be accepted as a home student! I asked for clarification from each university spending a lot of time going through our situation. (We have been in Canada for nearly 15 years). However, each of the 3 informed us that my son is a home student.

Obviously this is delightful to my bank account. I have asked for this in writing from each of the 3 institutions that said this was correct. In other news, each university put on a great presentation for the prospective students and welcomed them with open arms. We were thoroughly impressed and I would say thank you and well done to them. The universities that gave the good news were Sheffield, Nottingham and Liverpool. The bad bad one was Southampton.

dunroving

I am extremely (but pleasantly) surprised at this and hope it turns out to be true - I think you are definitely wise to ask for confirmation in writing.

I'd also add "Be careful who you ask" - student advisors and such are often either (a) misinformed/uninformed, or (b) not in a position to make these decisions.

If you get it in writing from Admissions you are in a better position than from a course director. Academics are often clueless about how the business of a university is run!

tribec

I was actually shocked by this myself as we had budgeted for international fees. So we had the admissions tutor take us to the actual admissions staff from each university and they all confirmed it. Obviously, still in complete disbelief, I asked for it in writing. However, informed of this information now, I stressed that this opportunity to be a home student would of course play a HUGE reason in my son choosing their university over another.

dunroving

Fingers crossed it works out for you.

Karrie72

Wow, really? I am surprised by this too. Are they basing this on nationality alone?

Sue

Hi tribec,

Congrats on all you son's hard work to get into university, I'm sure you are both over the moon.

I have a quick question, did they tell you why he was accepted as a home student? It's just as a parent of a student at university in the UK, who is classed as an international student, I would be interested to know what criteria they based that decision on. It also may be handy for others who have children hoping to go to university in the UK.

As dunroving said, I am chuffed to bits for you if that is the case. One thing to bear in mind though, is that even if the university classes him as a "home student" its a different ball game when it comes to UK Government student loans (although that may not be something you were considering anyway.)

Congratulations again to your son!!

Sally Redux

I am also really surprised as we will be shelling out overseas rates. I am surprised that someone could make that determination on the spot, there is usually a form to be filled out with all your details.

holly_1948

Do you perhaps still own a home in England?
If so I think that would allow them to turn a blind eye to the fine print.

I hear nothing but good things about Liverpool University. And if your son is to do Mech Eng in Liverpool he could apply for a scholarship from the HMS Conway trust if his Mech Eng interests do not exclude maritime stuff. Paid scholarship would be better than a loan any day.

And for those who can plan ahead a few years, a buy to let house within commuting distance for Liverpool University would be cheap. Wallasey is cheap and OK, Hoylake is OK priced and actually fairly nice.

tribec

Hi Sally - the decision wasn't made on the spot fortunately. We had the forms sent through to us before Christmas and we filled them out, attached a cover letter and sent them back immediately.

Sue - they said that although we were Canadian residents (we've never done our citizenship), with a child with a purely Canadian education it was decided from the above mentioned returned forms, that we would be classified as a home student. In response to funding, I hope that my reply doesn't offend anyone. You are completely correct in the assumption that we cannot get funding in the UK. It seems in fact that we are too Canadian for UK funding and having been accepted as a home student, we are too English for Canadian funding. We are however waiting for official confirmation on this.

Montfan - I'm not too sure what they are basing this on. Maybe the information on the forms and the cover letter. I don't think that it is based on nationality alone though as I know several people on here who have had to pay international fees. It maybe course selection also.

Once we get updated and written confirmed information I will let you know.

Sally Redux

Nothing personal but the system does seem rather arbitrary.

dunroving

From my experience with international students at my university, as well as "home" students trying to get "home" status (see my thread from about three years ago where I was successful in helping an overseas/Scottish student get home fees), the following observations may be relevant. I'm not saying any of these apply to the OP's current thread, just to be clear ...

Students and their parents sometimes make mistakes (they fill the form in incorrectly, indicating they were resident inn the UK for the past three years when they were not). In these situations, it usually ends in tears but there have been one or two posts over the years where the incorrect/false information has not caught up with them.

University personnel sometimes make mistakes, telling students and their parents things they have no right to tell them. Eventually this also usually ends up in tears.

Generally, universities are loath to grant exceptions because for them it is largely about income. By "exceptions", I mean classing a student as "Home status" - this is a university-level decision, and not a department or course-level decision. Waiving fees by way of, for example, using department funding to pay the fees on behalf of the student is exceptional and IMO would only happen if a student is phenomenally talented. Consider that we can't even get our department to pay for our printer cartridges - paying £5 is a lot different than using department funds to cover £30,000 of a student's fees.

Home status is a university classification that applies to fees and to loans, AFAIK, so it would be strange for a university to say a student has home fee status but for the government to say they can't have a student loan.

Having said all of that, home fees are now so close to international fees at many universities that universities may be applying a more lenient set of regulations to determining home status because it effectively means little difference financially to the university.

ETA:

I just had a quick peek at Liverpool's fees and for home students they are £9,000 p.a. and for non-EU internationals they are £12,750 for most traditional programs - but a lot more for medical courses like dentistry and vet science. Engineering was £15,000

Their page on fee status says the same as I have seen on other universities' sites (including my own). The exception to the "three year" rule is as follows:

"Other categories of 'home' student

The following criteria may also result in a 'home' classification subject to the production of all requested supporting documentation:

Students who meet the 'settled status' requirements but who have not been 'ordinarily resident' in the UK/EEA for the required period only because they, their spouse/civil partner or parents were temporarily employed outside the UK/EEA. Provision will be given for this as long as documentary evidence is provided to substantiate the temporary nature of the absence AND evidence is provided that sustained links were maintained with the UK/EEA throughout the period of absence. The sort of evidence we would require in these instances is as follows:


1.Evidence of the fixed-term or temporary nature of the employment overseas. This should cover the full period of the absence and explicitly state its temporary nature. A copy of employment contract(s) which demonstrate fixed-term appointments would be most appropriate.

AND

2.Evidence of sustained links with the UK/EEA throughout the period of absence, in the form of utility bills or tax payments on a current property, copies of bank statements showing regular activity or evidence of income tax/NI payments in the permanent country of residence.

NOTE: The payment of tax in the UK does not in itself satisfy the requirements for 'home' fee status."

- again, this matches what I have always said - IF parents were clearly overseas on a fixed-term, overseas work contract, an exception MAY be made. Military postings, diplomatic postings, etc., are clear examples. I'd imagine a short-term posting to the US office of a UK company would also qualify. Longer periods overseas (10+ years, for example) would be much harder to qualify as "temporary".

rebs

I wonder if it is significant that it's an engineering degree in this scenario? There seems to be quite a push to get people into things like engineering...

A young relative of mine started an engineering degree last September. He's at a much less prestigious institution that the Russell Group Unis mentioned here, but even so he did not get the A level grades that were outlined in his conditional offer. Despite that, he was still offered the place, along with a free laptop and a £1500 bursary.

It almost reads as thought the OP's son is not actually a 'home' student - as evidenced by being ineligible for the government student loan, but that the universities are effectively applying a discount to the fees to bring them in line with those charged to home students.