Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean,

I am writing to appeal for the removal of an F from my transcript due to non-participation in an enrolled course (ANAT 100).


Over the past year and a half, I experienced significant family challenges that affected my employment status, and my ability to participate in the course ANAT 100, which led to my final grade of F. In 2019, My spouse's mother was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, which required me to suddenly travel from Canada back to the Caribbean to temporarily provide supportive care. My mother in law's situation turned out to be a dire circumstance, more than we had imagined. She had to travel to several countries to receive emergency surgical treatment over a period of months. The situation was extremely hard on my spouse and I had no choice but to support her in every way possible. Frequently, I had to provide care for my mother-in-law as she was unable to help herself due to limited mobility and my wife was physically drained and emotionally exhausted. It was a highly stressful time and I really could not focus on academics. I even had to quit my job so that I could assist in providing round the clock care while we made long term plans.

Naturally, the course ANAT 100 ended and my final grade was 0. A letter grade of F was recorded on my transcript. Since then, I was able to retake the course and obtained a grade of A-. I have no doubts that my performance would have been similar or better if my circumstances were different when I first enrolled in the course.

Honestly, I do not expect this appeal to be successful because I know it has been quite a few months since the grade was recorded. The reason my appeal took this long was because when I researched the appeals process, I discovered that I needed to provide supporting documentation to prove my circumstance. Since then, I have been trying to obtain letters from the doctors involved but to no avail. Hence, I do not have any documentation that could explain why I had to support my wife and I am fresh out of ideas as to what else would suffice.

I remain hopeful that you will see that I am telling the truth and these circumstances were truly beyond my control. Should you decide against my application, I would still be grateful that I was granted the opportunity to appeal.

Any consideration you can provide to help me achieve academic success would be profoundly appreciated.
Thank you.