Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean:

I am appealing the Faculty's decision that I must withdraw from Queen's University for three years.

After last time I got the one-year withdraw, studying became huge pressure to me. I kept asking myself where the problems are and I tried to talk with my friends about their learning skills. However, even though I got a little improvement, it was still not good enough. I started to question myself if I made a wrong choice to come to Canada; why other international students can do so much better than me, but I did not give up. I kept trying different methods and finally I got a B in the winter term. I realized that studying is not that hard as I thought, even I found it was happy of learning new knowledge. However, my GPA is still not good enough, so I switch the degree plan to general because it is a more reasonable goal for me to achieve and I have confidence to get there. I also enrolled three summer courses to make my GPA better, and for now, the grades of the summer courses are above B.

Three hours before I got the confirmation of changing degree plan, I got the notification of withdraw. I did not know how to express my feeling at that moment. It was like the patient who was told that he could only live for two weeks. The first feeling came to his mind was not sadness or desperation but helpless. I wanted to make a phone call to talk with someone but I was so afraid to tell anyone since I did not know how to face the disappointment from my parents and my friends. My visa is going to expire in September, so I will not have any legal status in Canada. The only way for me is going back to China, but in China, if you do not have a college or university diploma, there is no way you can find a job. I do not know what to do if I have to going back.

To be honest, I do not even know how to write this appeal letter. However, all the words above are not for sympathy, these are the real feeling deep down through my heart. I am not begging for giving me another chance to stay in Queen's, but asking for another chance to take the responsibility for my decision of coming to Canada back to four years ago. The GPA requirement for general degree is 1.6, and I am so close to achieve that goal, I could not let myself giving up right now. If I can go back to Queen's next semester, I will cherish every minute in school and I have faith that I can graduate next year. Thereby I am writing this letter genuinely to plead you to grant me a second chance from withdrawing. I really appreciate your time reading this letter.


Sincerely,

Yuwei Xing