Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To whom it may concern,

I have always put my all into my work, studying countless hours to ensure I knew everything I possibly could for my exams. This was especially true for courses I did not do well with in the beginning. Often, however, my high levels of efforts have fallen short on many of my exams. This has been true fro most of my life, and a part of me always just thought I wasn't smart enough. Throughout high school, I noticed that there were certain difficulties I faced in my education that many others did not. I asked every year to see a specialist, to get tested for a learning disability, and be provided resources to succeed. I was denied every time because my initiative and handwork always managed to provide me with decent grades. Now in university, my difficulties with learning were becoming more prevalent and I finally pushed to undergo a psycho-educational assessment over the summer. The results showed me that I am smart but that I do have ADHD and dyslexia. As a result, my working memory and processing speed work at a level below the 3rd percentile; falling in the well below average range. This diagnosis has explained to me why it is so hard to pay attention is crowded areas. It has explained why sudden noises or motions causes me to loose my train of thought. It has explained to me why I struggle to keep track of information present in long winded questions. It has explained to me why It takes me so much longer to complete tasks to questions on a test. And, finally, it has explained to me why I often answer the wrong question in the wrong space when I am rushing to complete the exam in the restricted time. The conditions in which I have been tested under have not been fair, and have resulted in marks that are really not reflective of my knowledge and efforts. Currently, I am working on learning and testing techniques to help flatter the accommodations the university is now providing. I plan to work hard on improving myself so that my grades can reflect my knowledge. This is especially important to me as I wish to pursue higher level education so that I may pursue my career path of choice.

My issue I face now is that there are grades on my transcripts that are tarnishing my GPA unfairly. I say unfairly because I wrote in conditions that did not allow me to show my true knowledge set. From large crowded space, a bird in my examination room, condensed questions that were difficult for me to read, and insufficient time. I am here today asking for certain courses, that I took as elective, to be changed to a credit standing instead. I make this request as these courses are not directly related to my degree and were taken out of pure interest.

Queen's has always been promoted to me as a place of inclusion, where I would be supported and given the resources I needed to succeed. I am so excited to be working with those resources now and I am hoping you can provide me with the resources to help amends the complications formed by a school system that ignored my requests to help over all four years of high school. I am hoping that this appeal can be another aid provided to me in order to further succeed during my time here at Queen's University.