Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing this letter to appeal the three courses I took this summer being CHEM 281, ENGL 100, and PSYC 271. I took CHEM 281 in the May-June Summer Term and am currently taking ENGL 100 and PSYC 271.

Due to a very unfortunate circumstance, I have been unable to perform well in these courses. During my second year at Queen¿¿s University, (around October 3rd 2016), my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, this really affected me psychologically and caused me have a lack attentiveness and focus as I kept taking recent visits and leaves back homes to be with her. This strongly affected my learning process second year as I felt really depressed and could hardly attend classes. I was never comfortable talking about this to anyone because I don¿¿t really like troubling people with my personal problems, or using them as an excuse. Towards the end of second year my mother went through surgery and the tumor was removed, the doctors stated that it was gone. This brought me back to a normal state, and since I did poorly second year, I thought I could take some courses to boost my GPA.

But unfortunately during the second week of May, on May 10th 2017, the cancer had reappeared and had progressed in two different places. This caused a downfall in studies and concentration once again. I didn¿¿t drop my courses at first because I didn¿¿t want my mother to feel like this is really effecting my education and feel bad or guilty, and I also was trying really hard and not make an excuses for myself. I wasn¿¿t in denial, but I was just trying my best to work with what I had without giving up or making excuses. But now my mother told me that the cancer has progressed vigorously and she¿¿ll be starting chemo next week in Toronto General Hospital, and would like me to be there with her. I feel like I¿¿ve come to a point where there is no point in trying to hide it and hold it in, and so I told my dad how severely it¿¿s been affecting me, and now I just feel like I should take a break and go home and stay with her. I¿¿m not even writing finals because I already came home yesterday to be with my mom, and I feel like there is no point in memorizing everything I can in a week or two, and writing an exam for a course where I wasn¿¿t able to focus or learn anything properly.

I went to a local doctor in Kingston, who has provided me with a note, and I¿¿ve started to go to counselling in Kingston. Since I¿¿ll be in Toronto for the rest of the summer, I ¿ll be continuing counselling here. I spoke to an academic advisor who told me that there is usually counselling services at hospitals, so I¿¿ll probably go to one there.

It is because this circumstance was out of my control that I wasn¿¿t able to perform well during second year and this summer. I am going to go into third year and cannot afford to get an another incomplete or a failure on my transcript as I did in second year, for I am planning to further my education by applying for a Master¿¿s Degree. An incomplete or failure would greatly affect my chances of being accepted.

I will be happy to answer any questions you might have. Thank you for taking time to review my request and I am extremely sorry for the inconvenience.

Sincerely,
Kruthika Mahadevan