Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To the Associate Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science,
I am petitioning to contest the faculty’s decision that I must withdraw from Queen’s University for a minimum of one year. I have been requested to withdraw due to a cumulative GPA of 1.42 after failing two courses I took in the 2024 Winter Semester.
Over the past four years, I have been dealing with a declining mental health, including attention issues, anxiety and depression, all of which accumulated until I could not push through them anymore. My mental health had started to decline in February of 2020. In that month I experienced the death of my best friend, which was then compounded with the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdown in March. This led to a time of my life of severe depression and an anxiety disorder which made it difficult to seek the help I needed. I have already been prescribed a low dose of Sertraline since 2019 due to lifelong anxiety issues, but February 2020 was the first instance where my doctor recommended increasing my dose. I did, believing at the time that that was all I needed to do better mentally. I regretfully did not reach out for further help at that time for my own health or academics, and my transcript during the lockdowns reflects the decline in my mental health. I used my academics as an outlet and convinced myself I just had to push through. During and after the lockdowns, I was consistently taking on more work than I should have and, as a result, getting grades that allowed me to only just meet Queens GPA standards, but putting considerable stains on my academic record. I started to notice my anxiety, attentiveness, and ability to stay focused worsen during this time.
At the start of the 2023 Fall Semester, I only had four courses to complete. I had resolved to finish my degree that semester, but I started to experience more severe focus issues. As I struggled to keep up with the course load, my anxiety worsened and was compounded by the pressure of being on Academic Probation for a third time. To combat this, I tried to prioritize overlapping assignments but would find myself taking far too long on one assignment, leaving others to be incomplete. This behavior led to panic attacks throughout the semester and worsening depression. Still, I kept all this to myself, fully believing that being so close to the end I could just push through. During that semester, I promised myself I’d go talk to my doctor after I graduated, which despite all my concerns I had not done since 2020. Looking back, I should have reached out right away. By the end of that fall semester, I passed two courses and failed two others. I had not planned to take courses in the winter semester and with the finish line being moved, my mental health declined again. With more pressure to succeed both internally and externally, I had a very poor first half of the winter semester. With fewer courses, I had assumed my anxiety and focus would improve, but I continued to decline which led to worse grades. More and more panic set in and my focus never improved. It was clear that my prescription was not enough to keep up and my anxiety was worse than ever, causing daily tasks to become harder and my physical health to deteriorate. By midterms I was exhausted. My courses had exams worth 40% and 50% of my final grades, so I hoped that despite a poor semester I could pull through by getting good grades on the exams. I wrote my exams, but due to mental and physical turmoil, I couldn’t bear to look at the grades until the posting deadline came for the transcripts. During this time, I reached out to my family doctor with the intent of finding out what was wrong.
To begin with, they have increased my prescription, ordered both heart and blood tests, and we have arranged to meet again to go over my results and to screen for attention disorders like ADHD. With my new prescription and a clearer mind, I will find answers as to why focusing, despite my will to do so, has been a challenge in my personal and professional life. Additionally, I will seek help to manage my depression and I am also consulting my doctor to see if issues I have attributed to my anxiety, like my attention span, may have separate causes. My anxiety and fears of being unwell or a failure have been holding me back from reaching out for help for a long time now, and I’m taking the difficult personal journey to voice my shortcomings and get the help I need.
I now realize that believing I could just push through my health concerns, was my biggest mistake and that this led me to wait until it was too late to reach out. Now, however, this is something I’ve already started to do and am on track to address.
With this letter, I intend to reach out for a chance to continue and finish my academic career without pause.

I sincerely thank you for your time and respect the decision you make,
Riley Smith