When you are waiting for the exam results
Who assesses your exam?
Quite often, a course is shared between several teachers, and each may have entered a number of questions for the exam. Each teacher would then mark their own questions. It could also be the case that one teacher alone teaches, writes the exam questions and marks the entire exam.
The final exam grade is determined by the appointed examiner for the course. The examiner is a person employed as a teacher at Umeå University or another Swedish university.
How and when do I find out the results?
You will be informed of exam results within 15 working days from the exam date.
How you get your results and where you can pick up your assessed exam varies between departments. You may find that information further down on this page. If not, your course providers must inform you in another way.
If you failed or disagree with the assessment
Rectifying or reassessing a grade
Grades cannot be appealed, which means they cannot be tried by a higher instance. But a student can always submit remarks regarding the assessment or request that an examiner reassesses their decision.
A grading decision that contains an obvious error can be rectified. This could, for instance, be if the examiner or marking teacher has made a typo or has miscalculated when assessing your exam. The examiner decides if a rectification should be made. If a rectification results in you getting a lower grade, you must be given the chance to express your opinion. Examiners must generally be very careful to make rectifications that have negative effects on you.
If an examiner finds that a grade is manifestly incorrect due to new circumstances or for some other reason, the examiner must change the decision if this can be done quickly and does not result in the grade being lowered.
How to request a reassessment or rectification of a grade can differ between departments. If you cannot find information further down on this page on how to do so, you can reach out to the department offering the course.
What do you wish to rectify or reassess, and why?
Before contacting the examiner with a request to rectify or reassess a grade decision, you should think through and specify what you wish to get changed, and why. Here are some examples of reasons that are normally not sufficient to rectify a grade:
- “I’ve looked at another student’s exam and I think we’ve answered about the same, so I should get the same number of points as them.” Your answers may look the same, but the teacher can use their subject knowledge to judge when the answers indeed do differ.
- “I’m close to achieving a higher grade, can you look again to see if you can find me some more points?” The examiner normally takes those borderline cases into consideration before they report your grade.
- “I believe I deserve another point on question X.” The marking teacher has normally already reviewed the possibility of giving you more points. If you have failed an exam, but the results show that you are very close to achieving a passing grade, you can ask the examiner if they will allow you to submit a supplementary assignment. Read more about this further down.
- “Can you look at my exam again?” This request is not specific enough for the examiner to act on.
Supplementary assignment
If your results are bordering a passing grade, the examiner may decide to offer you to submit a supplementary assignment to reach a passing grade, instead of retaking the exam. In that case, you must submit your supplementary assignment within ten working days from when you receive the offer, unless the course syllabus says otherwise.
If you are offered a supplementary assignment, you can either choose to do so or to retake the exam (do a resit).
Retake or catch-up exam
If you did not pass the first exam, you have the right to do a retake, sometimes called “resit”. Please note that if you passed the exam, you cannot retake the exam to receive a higher grade.
Learn more about retakes and catch-up exams