Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To the Associate Dean:

I'm writing to appeal the faculty's decision that I must withdraw from Queen's University for one year.
Throughout the academic year of 2015-2016, I was extremely stressed which led to some mental health issues that had immense impact in my academic performance. One of the symptoms is that it became harder for me to focus on one task. To be more specific, normally, it takes less than an hour to complete a reading of 1500 words, yet because my focus started to weaken, it could take hours for me to complete such task. As I started to look for help from school counselor in the fall term of 2015, I began to understand what I was feeling. I was constantly anxious, sometimes paranoid, and my attention could easily be shifted by insignificant or less important matters. All of which had direct impact on my academic performance. I'm a sociology major, most of my coursework consists of readings and essay writing. Without being able to focus, I could not conduct my research paper efficiently nor on time. At times, I almost gave up on trying. In the second semester, I was referred to a doctor by my counselor and began to take medicine prescribed by the doctor. The side effects of the drugs were to make me calmer yet sleepy, which really put a time frame on the amount of time I could spend on studying. Fortunately, towards the end of the winter term, I made progress in battling my mental health issues. My grades slightly went up in the second term, and I'm confident that I can keep making progress.