Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

My name is Sebastian Hansen and I am a third year psychology student and a member of the varsity football team. This past semester I dealt with a variety of family problems that greatly impacted my academic and personal performance. I come from a very typical and happy family that never had any real issues in the past however everything switched up very fast last semester. My parents let me and my 14 year old brother know that they were getting divorced at the beginning of the semester. This information was out of nowhere and my brother and I were very shocked by the news. I understood that this is part of life and I was not feeling too affected by it. The problems began to arise when there were problems with my brother. He took this info very rough and started hanging with the wrong crowd of kids and using substances. Hearing about this while being so far from my brother and family (they live in BC) was very tough on my mental health and I could not stop thinking about him. A few months later my parents informed me that they were sending my brother to a boarding school in the middle of nowhere in Alberta. This was devastating to me and I was not even able to contact my brother while was there. On the way back from dropping my brother off at the school, my mom got into a car crash and totalled her car and was extremely scarred from the accident. I had so much on my mind in terms of family matters and I began to feel extremely overwhelmed and unable to focus on anything. Trying to balance my mental health, 6 hours of football every single day, and my school work was an extremely tough challenge. I talked with some of my coaches and they tried to get me some help with tutors but were unable to find any. I tried my absolute best to finish with best grades possible but I ended up letting one class slip through the cracks. I failed PSYC 301. Around the time of exams my mental health was very poor and trying to focus on studying was almost impossible while worrying about my brother and trying to keep my composure. This class is important because it is a required class for my program and a pre-requisite for a class that I have since had to drop. Failing this class also impacts my scholarship and eligibility for football. I am extremely reliant on my scholarship as funds are very tight for me and my family. If I could drop this class it would be a huge help in terms of improving my GPA for scholarship and taking off a lot of stress for this semester. I am a very diligent student and take pride in getting good grades. I received academic all Canadian in my first year and have had very solid grades throughout my whole undergrad so far. Please consider my request and let me know there is anything else you need from me. Thank you so much, Sebastian

I have attached documentation showing by brothers enrolment in his boarding school and reports regarding my moms car crash