Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean (Studies),

My name is Jane Yuan and I am a 4th year kinesiology student here at Queen¿¿s university. I am writing to appeal my grade in MATH121 (Summer 2019) with Professor Alan Abelson for a credit standing in the course. I understand that credit appeals are typically given when the grade is below a C, but I believe the grade I received is not indicative of my academic abilities and will hinder my application when applying to graduate programs. Extenuating circumstances beyond my control, including family problems and illness, resulted in a substantially lower grade than what has been consistent with my past academic performance.

In the beginning of the summer semester, my brother relapsed from his oxycodone addiction. However, my parents had no knowledge of this, leaving me with the personal burden of keeping this secret to myself to respect my brother¿¿s wishes. The most I could do was to act as a positive support system and encourage my brother to continue is opiate replacement medication. As a result, I became very stressed and overwhelmed, which in turn, negatively impacted my studies as it deterred my attention away from my coursework, specifically studying for the midterm exam. By the time I received my midterm mark on July 10th, it was already too late to drop the course without an academic penalty as the deadline to drop was June 28th. If I had known in advance that my brother would relapse and the situation would escalate to the level it did, I would have dropped the course earlier in the semester to allow myself time to deal with my family problems without sacrificing my own academic performance.

Between the middle of July to the end of the course, I became unusually tired and experienced many signs of mono such as a sore throat and swollen glands. As I have never had mono, I attributed the symptoms to the common cold. I was unable to seek medical attention since I have no family doctor in Ottawa and could not see a doctor at the walk-in clinic due to long wait times. Despite dealing with my brother¿¿s relapse and consistently feeling fatigued, I was still hopeful to finish the course strong. I dedicated the little energy I had left into completing assignments and studying for the final exam. On August 3rd, 3 days after the final exam, I woke up with a high fever and body aches along with other symptoms. I sought medical attention and was informed by the doctor that I had been battling mono for the weeks prior (refer to Doctor¿¿s note). If I had known I had mono, I would have made sure to get plenty of rest and would have deferred the final exam to when I regained my health.

I believe that due to my brother¿¿s relapse and my own personal illness, I was both mentally and physically exhausted and I was unable to dedicate an adequate amount of time to excel in a 6.0-unit summer course. The grade I received in this class is not consistent with my past academic performance (4.06 GPA Fall 2018 and 3.82 GPA Winter 2019) and this course specifically weakens my application to epidemiology graduate programs.

Please note that that my brother has returned to his opiate replacement medication and I have fully recovered from mono. Since moving back to Kingston, I plan on seeking help from Queen¿¿s counselling to help me develop techniques to better cope with future family problems to minimize the effect of extenuating circumstances on my studies. I am optimistic that with counselling and better health, I can now continue to excel academically to make myself a competitive candidate when applying to graduate programs.

Thank you for allowing me to state my grounds for appeal and I appreciate your consideration.

Regards,
Jane Yuan
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