Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear, whomever it may concern,

Today I am requesting that ¿Credit Standing¿¿ status be applied to my grade from PSYC 370 which I took during the winter of 2019. There are several reasons I believe this request is reasonable, and I hope to successfully relate those reasons to you in the following letter.

Firstly, after receiving a poor grade for the first midterm examination, I did not feel that I had sufficient information to justify making any request regarding the dropping of the course in question, or to request pass/fail grading status for this course. This was due to the fact that at the time that I took the first midterm, I was recovering from the flu. Consequently, I later considered my low grade in that midterm to not be at all indicative of academic performance in the course as a whole. After taking the second mid-term examination in PSYC 370 and again not doing well in my estimation, I spoke to an academic advisor about changing my status in relation to this course, but the deadlines for making changes to courses had passed. I had intended to have the course be changed to a pass/fail grading or drop the course entirely.

I found that, as a philosophy major, the content of PSYC 370 was prohibitively advanced. So much so that I am puzzled as to how BAH students are allowed to take this class in the first place. And while I did take the preamble class to PSYC 370, PSYC 271, I found this left me woefully unprepared for the amount of assumed technical knowledge required in PSYC 370. Moreover, I know that I am far from alone in this analysis. I did, multiple times, reach out to my professor after class for clarification of material which yielded little success in furthering my understanding. Furthermore, the professor¿¿s 50-minute presentations were made even more difficult to follow since they would frequently involve 20+ minutes of personal anecdotes about the professor's life which as someone paying to be in this class I found unacceptable.

Lastly, in light of my responsibilities as an Academic Events Coordinator and as a Queen¿¿s University Senator, and considering the fact that I was campaigning at the time for the position I currently hold as a Philosophy Department Student Council President, I found myself temporarily overwhelmed with many new responsibilities, and was subsequently ill-equipped to deal with a problematic course experience based around content which fell well outside of my knowledge base.

As a student who is near complete visual blindness, I have faced many challenges throughout my academic journey. However, I have never made an academic appeal. This is because I believe that I should embrace true reflections of my character and ability. The grade I received in PSYC 370 last winter is not at all congruent with my other grades from last year, and it is not a true reflection of my character or abilities for the reasons stated above.

I thank you for your consideration, and ask that you keep in mind that I work hard for my grades; they do not come easily, and I appreciate their value. Hence, I am not requesting that you give me a grade that I do not deserve, I am asking that you remove one.

All the best.