<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I suspect there may be some cross-cultural confusion here. There are a couple of things that spring to mind from my experience of sending UK students to Australia. Sydney (unusually in Australia) normally uses norm-referenced assessment. This means only a certain proportion can pass and they are judged against the performance of other students in the class. This might explain the apparent discrepancy between your daughter’s earlier marks and the final outcome - her work was OK but just not good enough against the other students. As far as I know failing scripts are second marked to double check like in the UK, and appeals against the mark are a much more formal procedure than in the USA. Consequently, professors will tend to react cooly to informal approaches as it is seen as incorrect. There will be a document on their website explaining all this in mind-numbing detail.
Australian departments also have to retain exam scripts for a specified amount of time (normally until an academic board has made a final decision on the student’s degree and any time for appeals) - that means students really can only review their scripts on campus. I just mention this because it might help explain what has happened and also help you decide what is and isn’t worth doing in Sydney.
One thing she might want to consider is that unlike American universities, the possibility of resit examinations exist - again details should be on their website. The grade might be capped at a basic pass (I don’t know but as many of their systems are like British ones, that’s what we do). But maybe worth thinking about if she thinks a) she could get through and b) her home university would just record it as a pass.
Frankly, I’m most horrified that her home university has clearly not bothered to find out how a partner university operates and to counsel students accordingly! That really is dereliction of duty and well worth complaining about. With norm-referenced assessment it’s normally very mechanical when grades are decided on, so I think they are particularly far off the mark in claiming anti-Americanism.
Anyway just to echo the comments of everyone else - I really think the value of the study abroad experience will outweigh this one bad grade in employers’ eyes.</p>