Petition Letter
I am writing to petition for permission to add a course for this winter after the add/drop deadline. The reason I want to add a course is because doing so is necessary for me to be eligible for the dean’s honour list, which is important for applications for scholarships and grants in my future as a graduate student. The main reason I think this petition should be granted is because Arts and Science Student Services explicitly told me that I could become eligible for the dean’s honour list by taking a summer course after I graduate, so I made arrangements to do so. Then, only after the add/drop deadline, I was told that Arts and Science Student Services had misinformed me. My need for an exception was created by misinformation from a university official.
Here is the relevant timeline:
Sometime before January 16th, an academic adviser in a drop-in zoom meeting told me that she couldn’t think of any academic downsides of dropping down from 3 winter courses to 2 winter courses.
On January 16th, Arts and Science Student Services sent me the following email:
“Hi Nick, Thanks for bearing with me while I gathered information for you. I have confirmed the following:
1. If a student is taking over 120.0 units this term (i.e., some courses will not count towards degree program but will count towards GPA), would these extra courses count towards the 18.0 units minimum for the DHL eligibility? YES
2. If a student took 15.0 units in Fall+Winter, graduates in the Spring, and then takes 3.0 units in the Summer, does that still count as 18.0 units taken towards the DHL minimum? YES
I hope this helps! Looks like you have lots of options now. I will copy Libby on this email so that she knows it has been taken care of. Let me know if you have any other questions!”
Consequently, relying on this official advice, I dropped the third course I was enrolled in and made arrangements for taking PHIL 510 over the summer.
On January 24th, ASC Academic Advising emailed me saying that they consulted with the Registrar’s Office, who “manages the mechanism that decides the Dean’s Honour List,” and the takeaway from this consultation was that Student Services was right about confirmation #1 but wrong about confirmation #2. So, I decided to double-check with the Registrar’s Office.
On the morning of January 25th, multiple people in the Registrar’s Office told me that both of the above emails are wrong because both confirmation #1 and confirmation #2 are wrong. Also, they told me that, in the afternoon/evening of the 25th, I would receive a definitive email finalizing/clarifying everything.
On January 29th, this email finally arrived. In it, Libby Hearn says that what the Registrar’s Office said was wrong and what the ASC Academic Advising email said was right. Libby's email claims to be the final verdict, so I’m assuming that this is true. In other words, I’m assuming that taking another winter course would make me eligible for the dean’s honour list but taking a post-graduation summer course (or taking only two courses this term) wouldn’t.
Therefore, given how much I’ve been misinformed by representatives of Queen’s University (and because I was given the correct information only after the add/drop deadline), I think I should be allowed to take another winter course. It seems very wrong for misinformation to be allowed to jeopardize my future opportunities.
Here is the relevant timeline:
Sometime before January 16th, an academic adviser in a drop-in zoom meeting told me that she couldn’t think of any academic downsides of dropping down from 3 winter courses to 2 winter courses.
On January 16th, Arts and Science Student Services sent me the following email:
“Hi Nick, Thanks for bearing with me while I gathered information for you. I have confirmed the following:
1. If a student is taking over 120.0 units this term (i.e., some courses will not count towards degree program but will count towards GPA), would these extra courses count towards the 18.0 units minimum for the DHL eligibility? YES
2. If a student took 15.0 units in Fall+Winter, graduates in the Spring, and then takes 3.0 units in the Summer, does that still count as 18.0 units taken towards the DHL minimum? YES
I hope this helps! Looks like you have lots of options now. I will copy Libby on this email so that she knows it has been taken care of. Let me know if you have any other questions!”
Consequently, relying on this official advice, I dropped the third course I was enrolled in and made arrangements for taking PHIL 510 over the summer.
On January 24th, ASC Academic Advising emailed me saying that they consulted with the Registrar’s Office, who “manages the mechanism that decides the Dean’s Honour List,” and the takeaway from this consultation was that Student Services was right about confirmation #1 but wrong about confirmation #2. So, I decided to double-check with the Registrar’s Office.
On the morning of January 25th, multiple people in the Registrar’s Office told me that both of the above emails are wrong because both confirmation #1 and confirmation #2 are wrong. Also, they told me that, in the afternoon/evening of the 25th, I would receive a definitive email finalizing/clarifying everything.
On January 29th, this email finally arrived. In it, Libby Hearn says that what the Registrar’s Office said was wrong and what the ASC Academic Advising email said was right. Libby's email claims to be the final verdict, so I’m assuming that this is true. In other words, I’m assuming that taking another winter course would make me eligible for the dean’s honour list but taking a post-graduation summer course (or taking only two courses this term) wouldn’t.
Therefore, given how much I’ve been misinformed by representatives of Queen’s University (and because I was given the correct information only after the add/drop deadline), I think I should be allowed to take another winter course. It seems very wrong for misinformation to be allowed to jeopardize my future opportunities.