Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing this letter of appeal to express the difficulties I have experienced within the past year and how they have affected my academics and mental health.

Online school was extremely difficult for me as the disconnect from my instructors, peers, and campus was extremely detrimental to my mental health. I experienced severe symptoms that prevented me from doing schoolwork and functioning day-to-day. My grades this year were therefore not reflective of my abilities as a student and I was disappointed in myself.

To remedy this and attempt to catch up on credits, I registered for two summer courses. I was doing significantly better with my mental health after returning home and felt confident in my abilities. But unfortunately it did not remain that way and I have had to increase prescriptions in order to try and help as well as regular therapy appointments.

My existing accommodations will be enough to allow successful completion of the other course I am registered in for this term but I will be unable to continue with POLS 319. My energy, task initiation, and particularly my ability to concentrate have been severely impaired. I have found myself unable to participate in activities that I would like to do and have been able only to achieve basic requirements of functioning. I am emotionally and physically fatigued as well as feeling quite hopeless. This has all resulted in being unable to concentrate on lectures, readings, or any length of writing assignment.

I recognize that appeals are not for long term issues but I did not expect my symptoms to continue in this manner for this long. I will be taking the summer to improve my mental health in order to prevent situations like this from arising again.

Following this letter, I will be providing a letter from my doctor to affirm the symptoms and their severity in preventing me from proceeding with the course.

I am looking forward to a much more successful school year at Queen¿¿s this fall after a summer of rest and healing.

Thank you for your kind consideration.

Sincerely,
Erika Gow