Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: I am appealing my STAT263 mark due to the extenuating circumstances that the current climate and last semester imposed upon me. I am, and always have been, a student who excels in mathematics and this course should have been no different. I attended every lecture, office hours and additional review sessions; I feel I did everything any student would do to attain academic success. From the start of last semester, as early as mid-September, my stress levels were unmatched, and I began to become very overwhelmed with my situation and circumstances. I am typically not a person who deals with a lot of stress, and I do recognize that university is not easy nor is the plan I chose, but nonetheless, the levels of anxiety and stress I was feeling were unprecedented. Being put in such a demanding course load with no in person university experience was daunting. Having a fully online first year experience did not set me up appropriately for the challenges and courses to come. I had zero university-level study habits in place but was placed in courses which demanded this skill set, which I lacked because of the current pandemic and the circumstances the university was forced to deal with as a result. I worked to mitigate this stress as much as I could, by discussing options with academic advising in October both prior to and post midterms to discuss my options and to cope with how I was feeling. This effort can only go so far though and did not fix the underlying problem of that I was underprepared and overwhelmed with what I was dealing with. I am, and always have been, a motivated and dedicated student, but I felt out of my depth last semester and lacked the time needed to address the issues I was facing.

Moving forward to the exam season, I dedicated hours upon hours of work to studying for my stats final, which was to be weighted as either a whopping 70% or 90%. I, in all honesty, even about a week before the exam, was feeling quite confident in my abilities, reviewing the past exams with little issue. As the week progressed on and the exam neared, the situation with COVID became worse and worse. All I was hearing from those I live with and know in the Kingston and Queen??s community was how everyone they knew who had become infected, who had to isolate, and who could not write their exams as planned. With this news my stress levels, in an already unprecedented time, became so high once again. I didn??t want to get sick like my peers, I didn??t want to miss the few weeks of the year I get to spend with my family or be ??trapped? in Kingston alone for Christmas, it was all too much. I continued to study as conditions only worsened, and despite my extensive preparation, arrived at Dunning Hall to write my exam on December 11th to a line of 100s of people. This was no way for my first in-person university exam to occur. I was so overwhelmed the second I arrived by the number of people; I genuinely had not seen that many people in one place since prior to the pandemic. I feel this impacted my mental standing as this was not an environment that I felt safe in given the conditions within the Queen's community at the time. I sat to write the exam and my brain was in other places, reeling from the stress of the heightening COVID cases and the pandemic. I didn??t defer the exam as I didn??t want the weight of it to hang over me but the moment I arrived and saw the conditions I was being required to write a test in, I wished I had. I felt unsafe and scared, wondering if I was getting COVID sitting in the room. My hours of studying and extensive knowledge, which were reflected in my marks prior to this exam in the course, were all ruined with this one test and the circumstances of the week. I feel that these confounding variables make the final grade I received an innaccurate reflection of my effort, knowledge, or skillset in statistics, and I would greatly appreciate if this was reflected in a CR grade for the course. Honestly, a different day, with different circumstances, I can confidently say I would have gotten a much higher grade on this exam.

I have discussed my appeal and hope to take this course as a credit standing with Professor Molson, who has said I have both his support in my pursuit of a grade appeal and agreeance in the fact that this environment offered last semester did not promote academic success. I hope you take this into consideration and acknowledge these facts when considering my plea.

Thanks in advance
Claire Squire