Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To whom it may concern:

I am writing to request late enrollment into PHIL 203: Science & Society. I am a fourth-year philosophy major and have one more 200-level course to fulfill my requirements. Up until recently I was enrolled in PHIL 296, which I dropped several days ago. Throughout the drop period I was searching for a replacement course, as I was not interested in the subject matter of PHIL 296. I unfortunately could not find another course which was open and fit my schedule, so I was unable to make a switch during the drop period. On Friday, January 22nd, I came across PHIL 203, a course I had not seen before because I did not realize 200-level philosophy courses were offered online. I wrote Dr. Smith that day and attained his approval on Sunday, January 24th.

I have taken very few online courses and was unaware of the breadth of what is offered. Of course, this is entirely my mistake; however, I'm really hoping I can still be granted entry into the course. It distresses me to think that this piece of ignorance on my part caused such a significant error, and thus I ask even more hopefully that it can be overlooked, in order for this situation to end well. The subject matter interests me greatly, and I had Dr. Smith last semester in my seminar course and loved his teaching method and style. To clarify, I've been in the process of appealing since receiving Dr. Smith's permission on Sunday, January 24th. I was told by the Arts and Science faculty to appeal to Continuing Distance Studies, and a few days later I was told by CDS to appeal back at Arts and Science. This is just to illustrate that my appeal is not quite as late as it appears to be, and to explain that I haven't simply been delaying four days since receiving Dr. Smith's approval.

Again, there is no real excuse for my mistake. My lack of online course knowledge amounted to totally missing out on the opportunity. I am sorry to inconvenience the faculty (and anyone else) by requesting this appeal, but I would be very grateful for the late enrollment due to both the subject matter and the professor. This is the last semester of my degree and I would love to be able to finish with courses I am genuinely interested in and excited by.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Joseph Benson
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