Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean,

I am writing this petition to ask for my letter grade of B- in Management Accounting be changed to CR on my transcript. This grade has brought my GPA significantly down and does not reflect where I stand academically. This is notably because of how the midterm exam went.

I was supposed to write my midterm exam on February 17th from 9pm-12am as I get extra time, however, I was only given two hours. I emailed the professor before the start of the exam saying that I saw the exam was scheduled from 9-11 and wanted to make sure my extra time would be included. He assured me that once I started the exam my extra time would be included. I tried not to stress too much of the possibility of it not working. That being said, when I started the exam the time was at 2 hours. I proceeded to send the professor an email explaining that the extra time had not been included. However, he told me not to stress that after the two hours were up that it would refresh and add my extra time, which I found odd. He assured me once again that I had nothing to worry about and that he would sign me back in worst case scenario.

After two hours the exam ended, I was signed out, and given a grade that was not reflective of my work as I had not completed a large portion of the exam; I tend to write information down, think about it, and come back to questions later. 

I contacted the professor, and he informed me that he had given me a second attempt. When I went to go check I was locked out of the exam, which only further heightened my anxiety. I waited for over 20 minutes, which were extremely excruciating as I thought I was locked out and that the other mark would be my final grade.

Then, when I got back into the exam, I realized that it was a completely different exam and that all the calculations I had done were not going to serve me any good. It was essentially like looking at a new exam. I had to spend time reading over the new questions and understanding them. While I should of had three hours to look over one exam, I had two hours to look over one and one hour to look over another.

Then came the question of what to fill out. I was informed I should only fill out what I had not done on the first exam, but the questions were now different and out of order and I could not remember which parts I had completed and had not; some questions had several parts and I had skipped around, intending to come back to them. Therefore, going back into this exam with a pounding heart, confused and stressed, was not a mindset to be in to do well on an exam.

So, I wrote to the professor asking to be given a fair chance to retake the exam with my full accommodations. Even though he merged the two exams, I was never going to do as well as I could have simply because of all the issues that occurred and how stressed out I was as a result. I was given a few days to decide whether or not I wanted to retake the exam online again, during a time when I was overwhelmed with other exams and papers. I responded asking to be given a chance to write it in person so at least I would know for sure that there would be no possibility of any technical errors, but I was not given that choice. So, I decided not to retake the midterm. That being said, this has not sat right with me. It really felt and still feels like I was not given a fair chance. While I had an average grade of A on my individual and group assignments the mark of 64% on the midterm really dragged my final mark down. The only reason my grade is a B- instead of a C+ is because I did the three studies to qualify for the grade boost.

While it was a mistake that the accommodations were not added to the exam, this seriously impacted how I took the exam and my mark as a result. I believe that changing the mark to CR would be the fairest solution; I would still get the credit but not have to suffer with a decreased GPA as a result of an unfair technical error.

Sincerely,

Julia Johnson
20147365