Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean,

My name is Annie Foy.

Thank you for reading this petition. I am on academic probation and I am writing this letter because I may be requested to leave Queen’s if I cannot increase my GPA. I very much want to stay at Queen’s – I love learning, and I love the school. The reasons that I am on academic probation have to do with both mental and physical challenges. Accommodations started for me after this term started and I find them to be very helpful.

Summary and Relief Requested:

There are full details below, but briefly, I have recently been diagnosed with ADHD and received medication (as of November 2025). During the 2024/2025 school year and in the Fall 2025 term, I struggled with symptoms of ADHD. In Winter 2025, I also struggled with other mental and physical health issues, and a family death on top of the untreated ADHD.

I have recently received ADHD medication which I have found to be very helpful. I am still struggling but I believe I am demonstrating that I am capable of doing work at a university level.
I am retaking two of the courses from Fall 2024 (RELS 132) and Winter 2025 (PSYCH 100B), so those courses are not included in this petition.
With respect to six courses taken over the last year and a half, I am asking based on the rationale below that you find that my marks up to the period ending December 2025 are not reflective of my capabilities and grant me the following relief.

Winter 2025

The relief I am seeking pertains only to courses from Winter 2025 onward but my struggles affected my entire first year at Queen’s. For many years, I have struggled with managing change, focus, overwhelm, and time management and so when I registered at Queen’s in the Fall of 2024, I only registered in four courses and hoped that I could increase to five in the second term.

I found everything overwhelming from the beginning. I dropped GPHY 101 but still found everything very difficult to manage. I sought medical assistance in Fall 2024 and was prescribed medication for depression and anxiety (See Document 1 – Prescription for Apo-Fluoxetine dated November 7, 2024). Due to side effects, I did not continue with that medication and found little relief. In Winter, 2025, I continued to struggle with focus and time management. I also continued to struggle with depression and other physical health issues (see Document 2 – Letter from Dr. Cohen).

As of Christmas, 2024 my grandfather became quite ill, and we knew he was dying. I visited him several times between Christmas and March 3, 2025, when he passed away (see Document 3 – Death Certificate). My academic stress and performance significantly affected my mood as well. I failed 2 of the 5 courses and received low grades in the others.

Summer 2025 into Fall, 2025 - ADHD Diagnosis

Background: In June 2024, a psychiatrist identified indicators of ADHD. I had already been tested for ADHD but not found to have it despite having many indicators for it and despite struggling with focus, anxiety, and time management in high school. As a result of this, my mum reached out to Dr. Kofi Belfon to see if he was available to re-assess me for ADHD.

There was a delay in getting an appointment to be assessed, and I underwent a reassessment for ADHD during the summer of 2025. My appointment dates were June 8, June 29, July 13 and July 20. We did not receive the report from Dr. Belfon until early October (if relevant I can provide his email apologizing for the delay).

My mood was improved when I returned to Queen’s in the Fall of 2025 and I was optimistic that I would be able to better cope. I think I was certainly better than in 2024/25, but time management and focus remained serious impediments for me.

My mum reviewed the report with me during our Thanksgiving break, and we initiated an appointment with QSAS. We provided QSAS with a redacted version of the report, but the redactions were excessive, and they needed more information. Dr. Belfon provided a redacted report on November 5. At the same time, we reached out to my family doctor (Dr. Cohen) to prescribe medication for ADHD. That appointment was on November 3, 2025. I received my prescription for my medication that day and I started to use it.
We had an intake meeting with QSAS on November 7th and were advised that the report redactions were okay and that we should proceed to set up a further meeting to discuss accommodations.
The meeting to discuss accommodations was arranged for later in January. Accommodations were implemented part way through the Winter 2025 term. The accommodations are helping although I find that I am still struggling with task and time management.

How Does My ADHD affect me?

In addition to having serious challenges with time management and focus, I just take a lot longer than others to complete my work. I have a very hard time completing assignments or letting them go. Because I take so long to complete things, I sometimes become completely overwhelmed when I have multiple assignments due around the same time or exams too close to one another and I can’t even start the work. I have recently learned that this is called “Time Blindness”. Here is a link to a short video found on the web page of the ADHD coach I hope to work with this summer: https://lookingglasscoaching.ca/videos - it is the third video.

I become anxious when deadlines approach. I also need to work and rework things until they are satisfactory to me. For example, in my Sociology class in Fall 2025, I had completed almost all the work for my UDL, and I could have submitted it, but I wasn’t happy with it, so I didn’t submit it. I worked over the Christmas break to finish that so that I could submit it and I’m grateful to my professor that she accepted it and I was able to pass the course. As another example, I found the book review assignment in RELS completely daunting. I read the book and made extensive notes. I wrote and rewrote the script multiple times, and I felt that I could not record it because the wording wasn’t perfect. I have now submitted it, and I received a mark of 77% on it.

I know that this inability to complete affects my ability to submit assignments in a timely way and affects the time I have for other courses, and I am seeking counselling over the summer to better understand how to address and manage this.

Effect of Medication
I began taking Vyvanse in November 2025. I am working with my doctor to find the right dosage. Generally, I find that Vyvanse is helpful with focus when I am trying to work on assignment, study or write a test. Vyvanse does not help with my other challenges related to time management and becoming incapable of doing anything when I feel overwhelmed. Nor does it help with anxiety when I am facing a new form of assessment such as the book review video.
I have struggled in the Winter term of 2026 and have concluded that if I am allowed to come back in Fall 2026, I will be looking to take only 3 courses until I can build my capacity to better manage time and tasks. I feel that my capacity is slowly improving but the improvement is taking time.

Alternate Relief: In the event that you conclude that you cannot grant me the relief requested with respect to the individual courses, I request that you waive the requirement for me to withdraw on the grounds that I am showing significant improvement.

Conclusion
I truly want to stay at Queen’s. I am growing and improving. I am a genuinely curious person, and I have shown this term that I have the capacity to do the work (I received 75% on my SOCY Outline, a B+ on my English Midterm, at79% on my RELS 133 Reflection, and 91% of my RELS 133 Test). Last term, I received at 76% and 87% on my RELS 132 tests. Medication is helping me to focus and achieve the results of which I am capable, and I am confident I am on a path to developing the skills to better manage my time and multiple tasks and to identifying how many courses I can manage. I hope that you can see that I am capable of the work and that I am on a journey to address those aspects of my condition that are currently not being managed as well as they could. I have shown results even though accommodations were in place for only part of this new term.