Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean (Studies),

I am appealing the 21-day appeal deadline, with intention to submit a second appeal for the late dropping of STAT 263, ECON 111, ECON 112, and GNDS 120 taken in the 2014-2015 school year. In my first year at Queen's University I was suffering from a severe social anxiety disorder, and was exploring different anxiety medications with my family doctor that had negative effects until I was finally able to find a medication that worked very late in the year. The changing of medication and the untreated anxiety severely affected my ability to successfully complete schoolwork and attend classes. Additional supporting documentation and further explanation of this via my family doctor will be provided with my appeal to drop those classes late. Following my first year at Queen's I had not completed any courses first semester and failed four classes second semester due to anxiety I was issued an academic warning to keep my GPA above .70 or risk the requirement to withdraw for a year. I was also unaware of my options following my first year and wasn't aware that there was even an appeal process for student who experienced situations beyond their control that effected academic performance. Furthermore I was unsure that if I spoke to someone about the effect my mental health issue had, that it wouldn't be understood. During this school year (2015-2016), I planned on taking ECON 111 and ECON 112, as they were two of the courses that I had failed the previous year. Unfortunately due to a scheduling conflict I was only able to take ECON 110. I had emailed the professor and he assured me that ECON 110 was nothing more than ECON 111 first semester and ECON 112 second semester. At the time I was unaware how the exclusions of courses affected GPA and I was under the impression ECON 110 would replace ECON 111 and ECON 112 in the calculation of my GPA. After receiving my final grades I saw that my GPA had not replaced ECON 111 and 112 with 110, so I scheduled an academic advising appointment where I was informed that exclusions don't replace each other on your GPA. I do not feel that having failures on my record that were caused by extreme anxiety preventing me from doing my best work is an accurate representation of what I am capable of. The failures are also dragging my GPA down to the point that I am in jeopardy of being required to withdraw. I have been on the same anxiety medication for several months now and it is working perfectly, and completed this entire school year anxiety free. Unfortunately the only things hanging over my head are the marks I received in first year, and attempted to replace this year without success. In the future I will ensure that I am more informed when it comes to university policy on grading and will be maintaining regular contact with academic advisors to eliminate the chances of a misunderstanding happening again. I also am keeping regular contact with my doctor to maintain control over my anxiety and ensure that it doesn't cause another problem like it has in the past. There are also many counseling services, which I am intending of taking advantage of to help when I am feeling stressed or overwhelmed with school, and to help find rational solutions to anxiety related problems that I have. Going forward I plan to also appeal to late drop the courses I failed in first year due to my anxiety problem.

Matheson Goff