Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Hello,

My name is Connor Paul, and I am currently a second-year student attending Queen's University. I am writing this letter because I hope to drop a course without academic penalty. I initially reached out to my professor to see if there was a possibility to complete his course to obtain a credit, but he advised me to instead initiate the appeal process. My prof stated that he would support my appeal after hearing my circumstances, though I am not sure if that will suffice. I have reviewed the appeal process, and I hope that I can provide enough information for my application to be considered. Firstly, I will explain my situation: I ran into some financial issues a month back or so due to university expenses I had not anticipated having to cover. Additionally, the establishment that offered me a job has not been paying me the wage I agreed to, so I resorted to working as many hours as possible while trying to find a second job in order to regain some stability. The struggles I faced with work and the difficulties of moving away from home for the first time had me in a really, really dark place during the first few weeks of the term, and I fell pretty far behind in some courses. I have been working a lot to try and maintain my status as a student at Queen's University, but it has come at the expense of my academic performance. I seriously considered dropping out, but I have since overcome this setback. I had hoped to be caught up in time for my exams and the due dates for all of my course assignments, but it is undoubtedly an impossible task. Moreover, in the past month, my place of work has had a surge of Covid cases, and I have been covering a lot of shifts as many of my coworkers have been isolating or leaving for the holidays. In sum, this has been one of the hardest periods of my life, and I am trying to right all of my wrongs.

I'm not sure if I even fit the criteria for this type of consideration, as I do not believe I have the proper supporting documentation. However, I am willing to do whatever it takes to work towards any resolution. Additionally, I am not sure what information is needed, so I'll just leave some details I think might be needed below.