Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: My name is Ceresa van Lieshout and I am a second year Computing student. The reason I am filing for an appeal is to apply for an extension on my STAT 263 deferred exam. The initial reason for my deferral was my mother's Health. In March she had a severe ruptured brain aneurysm with several complications that put her in the ICU at St. Michael's Hospital for a month. What makes my case particularly challenging is since my mother and father are currently going through a divorce and have no family or friends in this country, my sister and me are in charge of all medical decisions (including power of attorney) and primary care. Once she was released from the hospital, things did not get much easier. Since my mother lives alone and did not qualify for much external help from the government, she required constant care over the summer. This meant watching her all the time so she did not injure herself (she had an exposed piece of brain to relieve pressure in her head), timing her anti-seizure medication, driving her to rehab and much more. Due to the constant stress and workload involved with caring for my mother I was and still am, having a lot of trouble finding enough time to focus my attention on my upcoming examination. In the past month she has even pressured herself into thinking that she must leave the country as soon as possible. This means rushing to pack and prep my childhood home for sale this October. Which in itself is also a very time consuming and demanding task. Additionally, I have two smaller issues related to this appeal. First, the current proposed date for my examination is September 16th from 7 to 10 pm, but unfortunately; I have another examination at this time, CISC 203 entrance test at 6:30pm. The second small concern I have is that, I am waiting on the results for my learning disability testing that I have completed over the past couple weeks. I was told I would know my results by next week. The reason I bring this up is, if something if shown in my results, I would like to figure out how it will affect my studies before making any examinations. In summation, I hope my case has fully illustrated why I feel the need for an extension on my upcoming STAT 263 exam. The stress and workload associated with my mother's health is too mentally overwhelming for me to properly apply myself on such an intensive course at this moment. I am optimistic that once school gets started again and my mother continues to make some progress in her recovery and has successfully left the country to be with family, I will feel more then capable to perform well on my Statistics course examination for Mr. Molson. In the meantime I will also seek out counselling services to better deal with the balance of home life and school. If a timeline is needed for a new examination date, I think end mid November or beginning of January would be best.