Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: My participation in in-class activities throughout this semester has been severely impaired by circumstances out of my control. I come from a single-parent household, in which my mother is the sole caretaker of my younger brother. My mother, despite trying her hardest, has found herself out of a job since early December of last year. She is a recovering alcoholic, and has severely damaged her ability to communicate and maintain solid employment; moreover, has had to deal with two court cases, and severe injuries as a result of a car crash. This has led to me travelling back and forth to Toronto repeatedly throughout the semester, oftentimes extending into the school week. Moreover, I have had to try to raise funds for them by increasing the amount of time I dedicate to selling things I own, watching my younger brother to help my mother save on childcare, and foregoing money that would have otherwise gone to more frequent trips to and from.

As a result, managing my academics, as well as running a club on campus, has been incredibly difficult. I am quite often not in Kingston to attend my classes, and when I am, I have found myself too exhausted to get out of bed. I had anticipated this would occur, and that my marks in classes that require attendance would drop, but I had no idea they would drop so significantly.

Prior to the strike, I had been counting on final exams and papers as ways of making up for lost participation grades, or grades from a test (in one of the classes) that I had taken off of quite little sleep, and quite frankly in a mental state that is not fit for test-taking. I had been working on improving my grades and had been studying quite heavily in preparation for these final assessments.

The significant reweighing of already submitted material (20% to 50%, for example), as well as participation marks, resulted in grades that I fear will likely significantly harm my prospects of getting into future programs. I do not wish to trauma dump to you, and know that moving into future study, I won't always receive exceptions for a seeming lack of effort, but my life has in many ways been turned upside down this term, and I am trying my best to fix it.

I am working on ways to adjust to these issues in my life, and I truly believe that absent the strike, I would not have to make this appeal; but any chance I had to improve my grades was lost, and I would appreciate quite greatly to have less to make up for.

My apologies for the sob story, and thank you for reading, I hope you consider my application.