Student Finance

Soldato
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ARGH.

I did my A-Levels summer in 2009 and am currently on a gap year, with an un-conditional offer of September 2010?..

Soo... I'm just doing my application for student finance as IIRC it has to be in by the end of April 2010.


Problems so far:
  • Their security certificate has expired :rolleyes:. Um, do I really want to be giving them my passport number!?
  • Course start date. I don't know this! End of September 2010 I guess! But they want dd/mm/yyyy. Also, how would anyone who's not doing a gap-year do this? They'll only have their five conditional offers right now, and even if they have the dates they don't know which of the five they'll be going to?
  • University name. "University of the West of England, Bristol" wasn't found. Manually scrolling though I did however find the "West England, University of". Um, crap search algorithm or what!?
  • Course name. There's "Software Engineering FT" and "Software Engineering SW"... :confused: What on earth is FT and SW?
  • Course length. Well it's a three year course which is four years with the optional industrial placement. I can't say right now whether I'll get a placement or not in two years time!
  • Tuition Fee costs. Um, I don't know a number yet! 'A lot of money'?
  • Argh all their number forms. I'm using the latest Safari on the latest Mac OS (yeah "tree-hugging hippy", my PC is the other side of the room! :p) and the forms for number input are only one character wide. So, for instance, when you fill in your National Insurance number (on their webpage with an invalid security certificate!) in each box you type in two numbers, but it's only wide enough to show one!

As you can tell, it was a long day at the office today and this has cheesed me right off.

TLDR; the first whiney student finance rant of the 2010-11 year!
 
Caporegime
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Term dates will be on uni website, if not contact the course admission person.

Tuition fee cost will be on uni website.

Course length, just put what ever. If it's 3 years, with optional placement year, just put 3. They won't mind you ringing up in 2 years and you saying you are going on placement and it's changing to a 4 year course. You'll have to do that with your bank as well with the student account (if you are having one) because that will automatically change to a graduate account if they do it.

Oh and use W7 and Chrome. :p
 
Associate
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The course length won't matter too much, I originally applied for a 3 year BEng, but now I'm transferring to a 4 year MEng, so I'll just change it when I next apply this summer. The course start date and tuition fees should be on the university website, have a search around because sometimes they're hidden away.
 
Caporegime
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Associate
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Just whack the closest you know in the box, when they asked me loan amount I put £1,000,000 just to see if they would give it me or not... Needless to say I got a letter about a week later saying my request of a loan for 1 million pounds had bin denied and they'd sorted it all out for me.
 
Caporegime
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Canada
UUUUUUEEEEEEEE!!!!

Get used to it... ;)


(Everything useful to say has alread been said so I can't help in any other way...)
 
Soldato
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I <3 Multiquote

Course length, just put what ever. If it's 3 years, with optional placement year, just put 3. They won't mind you ringing up in 2 years and you saying you are going on placement and it's changing to a 4 year course. You'll have to do that with your bank as well with the student account (if you are having one) because that will automatically change to a graduate account if they do it.
Yeah, I was kinda thinking "Meh, I'll just change it when I need to
Oh and use W7 and Chrome. :p
I've got W7 on my MacBoook Pro but I'd need to reboot! (I just partitioned the drive rather than VM it). And my W7 PC is the other side of the room. And I'm lazy. :p

Here are your term dates for 2010/11.

http://www.uwe.ac.uk/aboutUWE/termDates-1011.shtml


Tuition fees are here

http://www.uwe.ac.uk/money/ugTuitionFees1011-home.shtml


I searched 'dates of term' to find the term dates and clicked on 1 tab to find the tuition fees. Good luck in uni, I'm sure you will do great. :D
Thanks :D. I was gonna do that tomorrow... honest! :p Working in Sys-Admin I've done my quota of Googling for the day already! ;)

Just whack the closest you know in the box, when they asked me loan amount I put £1,000,000 just to see if they would give it me or not... Needless to say I got a letter about a week later saying my request of a loan for 1 million pounds had bin denied and they'd sorted it all out for me.

For the 'Tution Fees' box I was tempted to put "£9999, with vaseline" in!

UUUUUUEEEEEEEE!!!!

Get used to it... ;)
Ahem, I'll have you know it's a fine University with a history spanning many years...

Or not. :(

Funny thing is I got the grades to go to a more traditional Uni (Reading) but I dunno, UWE just felt 'right :confused:.
 
Caporegime
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Ahem, I'll have you know it's a fine University with a history spanning many years...

Or not. :(

Funny thing is I got the grades to go to a more traditional Uni (Reading) but I dunno, UWE just felt 'right :confused:.

Meh, I went to Plymouth, which is just below yours apparently, still in the top half of the table though so...:p

I found the same, places like Sheffield and Warwick just didn't seem as nice as Plym. You have to stay there for at least 3 years so if you like the place/course more it will be far more enjoyable. :)
 
Soldato
OP
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Meh, I went to Plymouth, which is just below yours apparently, still in the top half of the table though so...:p

I found the same, places like Sheffield and Warwick just didn't seem as nice as Plym. You have to stay there for at least 3 years so if you like the place/course more it will be far more enjoyable. :)

I had an offer from Plymouth too, and got the grades for it too (actually I got the grades for all of mine, and UWE was the lowest) :p. I didn't compare the league tables or anything so I don't know how UWE compares! "Meh Polytechnic" is what most people say :D

With UWE I'm going to be living in Bath still and driving in each day <can of worms open> and no I'm not a Fox clone; honest!. I think part of me was "I've lived in Bath all my life, if I'm going to move away it has to be somewhere nicer as otherwise it's pointless. Um, where's that??:confused:"
 
Soldato
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Course start date. I don't know this! End of September 2010 I guess! But they want dd/mm/yyyy. Also, how would anyone who's not doing a gap-year do this? They'll only have their five conditional offers right now, and even if they have the dates they don't know which of the five they'll be going to?

Trust me, just put in anything that is roughly right.

I'm getting paid and they don't even have me doing the right course.

Course length. Well it's a three year course which is four years with the optional industrial placement. I can't say right now whether I'll get a placement or not in two years time!

Again say anything, you have to apply again every year anyway.

Tuition Fee costs. Um, I don't know a number yet! 'A lot of money'?

Every uni course ever has the same fee, the maximum.

You're right, I truly hate dealing with the loan company though.
 
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box

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Associate
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Just whack the closest you know in the box, when they asked me loan amount I put £1,000,000 just to see if they would give it me or not... Needless to say I got a letter about a week later saying my request of a loan for 1 million pounds had bin denied and they'd sorted it all out for me.

So you're the reason we all had to wait last year... :mad:
 
Caporegime
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I had an offer from Plymouth too, and got the grades for it too (actually I got the grades for all of mine, and UWE was the lowest) :p. I didn't compare the league tables or anything so I don't know how UWE compares! "Meh Polytechnic" is what most people say :D

With UWE I'm going to be living in Bath still and driving in each day <can of worms open> and no I'm not a Fox clone; honest!. I think part of me was "I've lived in Bath all my life, if I'm going to move away it has to be somewhere nicer as otherwise it's pointless. Um, where's that??:confused:"

The only reason I looked it up on the table was because I was looking something else up a few days ago on the same tables.:p

They pretty much mean tiddly squat anyway, case in point, The Guardians table puts Plymouth about 10 above UWE whereas the Times one puts UWE one place higher... Apparently the better ones to look at are the subject tables, but still...

Bath is nice, my ex lived near it and we went there a few times, nicer town than Plymouth but Plymouth is in a nicer area (right next to the sea, Cornwall and Dartmoor).

So you're the reason we all had to wait last year... :mad:

What? They ran out of money servicing his loan?:p
 
Soldato
Joined
14 Jan 2009
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4,325
I was doing this yesterday. I shouted at it hard.
* Their security certificate has expired . Um, do I really want to be giving them my passport number!?
I don't care really, everyone knows the SLC is run by coherant retards, just look at how the grants system works.
* Course start date. I don't know this! End of September 2010 I guess! But they want dd/mm/yyyy. Also, how would anyone who's not doing a gap-year do this? They'll only have their five conditional offers right now, and even if they have the dates they don't know which of the five they'll be going to?
It's on your UCAS (Took me a while to realise)
* University name. "University of the West of England, Bristol" wasn't found. Manually scrolling though I did however find the "West England, University of". Um, crap search algorithm or what!?
Yes
* Course name. There's "Software Engineering FT" and "Software Engineering SW"... What on earth is FT and SW?
Full time or Sandwich
* Course length. Well it's a three year course which is four years with the optional industrial placement. I can't say right now whether I'll get a placement or not in two years time!
Just say it's three year.
* Tuition Fee costs. Um, I don't know a number yet! 'A lot of money'?
On your university site, £3290 is the norm.
* Argh all their number forms. I'm using the latest Safari on the latest Mac OS (yeah "tree-hugging hippy", my PC is the other side of the room! ) and the forms for number input are only one character wide. So, for instance, when you fill in your National Insurance number (on their webpage with an invalid security certificate!) in each box you type in two numbers, but it's only wide enough to show one!
Welcome to government run websites.

Also, Plymouth is seriously, nice, go down, trust me you'll love it.
If you're going UWE you'll probably still want to move down else you miss out on all the drinking and drugs and fun.
 
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Soldato
Joined
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, Washington DC
I'd be less worried about their website, and more worried about whether they'll actually pay you on time. I know so many people this year who had to subsist on thin air until their loans finally arrived weeks late this year. I'm so glad to be done dealing with such a badly organised company.
 
Soldato
Joined
5 Apr 2006
Posts
3,084
Put youself as the 4 year (I believe this is the SW one), as it's easier to downgrade your loan rather than upgrade if you decide to do/not do a placement.
 
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