Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Queen's University Appeal Committee,

My name is Kaitlyn Fung (20122199) and I am in my fourth year of undergraduate studies at Queen's University in the Life Sciences program. I am writing to appeal for credit standing (CR) for the STAT 263 course which I completed in the winter 2021 semester. I achieved a substantially lower grade than expected due to unforeseen physical illness which occurred during the final examination on the morning of April 25th, 2021.
I unexpectedly became ill approximately 35 minutes after starting the online examination. The weighting of the final exam was 60% or 90% (depending on which weighting option produced a better final mark). At around 7:00 a.m. my father bought a sausage and egg breakfast sandwich from Tim Hortons and left it on the table for me. I consumed the breakfast sandwich at 8:15 a.m. I then commenced the online exam on the onQ website at 8:40 a.m. I progressively became more ill, until I began throwing up. I believe the cause of my illness was food poisoning. Unfortunately, I did not foresee my illness ahead of time. I studied and prepared for the exam well in advance. I completed the practice exams provided by the professor and studied the lecture material to prepare. However, my performance on the exam was impacted by the physical illness, as I had a difficult time concentrating and felt nauseous. I was not able to complete all of the questions on the exam within the time frame because I was throwing up. During the exam, I did my best to deal with my physical illness by drinking water and keeping a bucket next to my desk. I hoped the throwing up would subside, however I continued to feel nauseous throughout the exam and for a couple hours after. My final mark was significantly impacted by my poor performance on the final exam. I was only able to score 26 out of 65 marks. The low grade will impact my cumulative grade point average, and moreover impact my ability to take more data analytics courses. I am interested in taking CISC 351- Advanced Data Analytics, however according to the Solus course catalog a C- or pass (P) in a STAT course is the enrollment requirement for the prerequisites. The final grade I received is a D-. I have achieved an A in CISC 181, and B- in CISC 251. I would like to be able to enroll in CISC 351 and CISC 451 in the future to complete the certificate in data analytics offered by the Queen's School of Computing.
Should the appeal for credit standing be granted, I will take measures in the future to ensure that I am in good health before commencing the exam and that I do not consume anything that may cause me to become ill while writing. I will plan to be well rested and eat a proper meal beforehand. As per the attached email, Professor Charles Molson has shown his support for my appeal for credit standing. I have also attached a signed letter from my father as documentation. In the future, I will take precautions to avoid illness which may impact my academic performance.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this letter and for considering my request.

Sincerely,

Kaitlyn Fung
20122199