Post by adamSo you are saying the whole system should be designed from the point
of view of the applicant?
No. I'm saying there should be flexibility built into the system, in
opposition to the views I've seen so far that support the rigid "formal
legal agreement" idea.
Once again, I'm basing my objections on the quite daunting system that
applying to university is. Is it not enough that there are pressures
weighing down on 18-year-olds from every possible angle (parents, friends,
teachers, job prospects, exam anxieties, uni reputations, etc, etc) without
adding to that pile of stress by insisting that once they write "F" against
a name on a form then they are committed to that decision for at least 12
months? It doesn't give them a valuable learning opportunity -- as Stuart
Williams suggests. By then, it's too late and they will end up paying
a penalty that such a lesson ought to have prevented in the first place.
The only reason it is there (or, at least, the idea that it ought to be more
binding) is to make the AT's job a little easier. It has no direct benefit
to the applicant. The effect it does have on an applicant is to produce
the disgruntled youngster who sees the system as an obstacle and not a
means to getting on in life. That, to me, is a large cross against this
part of the system.
As for the ATs, well, I don't see them as almighty beings whose every
whim should be pandered to. They're demanding a feature that improves
their side of interacting in the system, with considerably less benefit
to the other side. To me, that's unreasonable in the spirit of creating
a compromise. They're just people doing a job, after all. If they
can't cope without that feature then surely we can apply the "Can't do
UCAS? Can't do uni" style of thinking to them, sack the whole bloody lot
of them, and get someone who CAN do the job. I assume they weren't
appointed by Divine Ordinance.
Post by adamThat places *extreme* pressure on the AT and universities.
There has to be some kind of compromise, this is done by taking the
overall "Real World" view, and trying to explain to people why certain
decisions were made.
But when the decisions that were made are based on "No, I'm not letting
you go elsewhere. I'm being a stubborn ass because I *can* be a stubborn
ass"... ?
Anyway, my reply is probably open to huge misinterpretation, so for the
sake of those unable to grasp what I'm saying (I'm not addressing this to
you, adam):
* Yes, I think that 18-year-olds should take responsibility for their
actions.
* Yes, I think that anyone selecting a university in the UCAS system as
their "Firm" choice should commit themselves as much as reasonably
possible to enrolling at that university, given no further change of
circumstances.
* No, I don't think we should make such a decision a "formal legal
agreement".
Post by adamThis reminds me of computers :)
On the one hand, you have programmers, who want to be able to write
software the way stuff works in their head, and they want it to
execute as fast as possible on some abstract peice of hardware.
On the other hand, you have the processor designers, who need to
design a processor which will execute programmer's code as fast as
possible.
Problem is, there is a limit to the speed of the processor. It can be
made faster however, by subtley changing the code, rearranging certain
lines and so on. In current desktop proessors, this is done on the
fly inside the hardware.
However, it can be made *even faster* by giving the responsibility for
rearranging code to make it fast, to the programmer/compiler. Then,
processor technology can be much simpler and hence much faster.
But then you have to ask, "does the programmer want to have to think
about hardware issues, things he doesn't care about, when trying to
write fast efficient software?"
The answer is, "no, but he *has* to anyway".
So no, the applicant probably shouldn't have to worry about ATs and
their problems, and in an Ideal World she wouldn't, but in the real
world, she must, hence the forms.
I don't think the forms are the problem. They contribute to the problem,
but they're not a variable that we can realistically reduce to zero.
The problem is that the forms create heaps of pressure only in combination
with other things associated with the process. So, if the forms are
constants, what else can we reduce to ease the pressure? (This is all
assuming that to reduce the pressure in a system is a good thing, of
course. For anyone with a sadistic "Teach the little fuckers a lesson the
hard way" attitude, then my whole viewpoint make much sense.)
--
BdeV