Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: I am appealing for a credit standing for Fall 2015 FILM 240, given an unforeseen and extenuating circumstance that was beyond my control - a cancellation of the final exam - which heavily affected my academic outcome in this course. The final exam was cancelled for everyone in the course due to technical difficulty, which was unforeseen, unpredictable and completely beyond my control. This event led to a loss of a significant opportunity to show my true performance and understanding of course content. This event is especially important for this particular course since the final exam was one of only two assessments that are based on knowledge/ course content, and not creative components. To specify, I took this elective course only with the assurance that there is a 50-50 split in assessment weight between the creative component (e.g. creating postcard and infographic) and traditional test examination format and knowledge. As a science student, I would not have taken this course without such an assurance, as the traditional test format would be the way I would make up for my lack of experience in producing artistic and creative work. I made a conscious choice to take this elective course to develop visual and creative skills, despite my full awareness that I would not excel in these components, only because I was confident that I would still excel in the knowledge traditional test assessments to make up for my loss of marks in the former component. With this understanding, I studied very hard for this exam and prioritized it over other course exams. I thus lost both time and energy (which is now unrecognized since the exam was cancelled) and was affected emotionally with devastation when I was informed that the exam was cancelled on the morning of the exam date (thus affecting my performance in other courses as well). Finally, the choices I made with regards to how much time and effort to put into each assignment/ test, and even, whether to drop the course or not early on, was based primarily with the final exam in mind (For example, at one point in the course, I seriously considered dropping the course - and emailed the Professor from whom I received support if I shall require it - but I did not drop it because I still had an opportunity to make up for some lost marks with the final exam). I would have taken different courses of action if the final exam was not in place, and thus the unforeseen cancellation of the exam heavily deviated my grade away from what I had planned and prepped for, and what I deserve after studying thoroughly for the exam. In summary, I am appealing for a credit standing (CR) status for the FILM 240 course since the cancellation of the final exam was an extenuating circumstance beyond my control that heavily affected my grade for this course, as well as moderately affecting my other courses since the way I allocated my time would have been different otherwise. There was no action I could have taken to prevent this circumstance that was beyond my control.