Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Dr. Brenda Ravenscroft,

My name is Mackenzie Fleming and I am a third year distance student in Life Sciences. The purpose of this letter is to formally request changes to two courses (PHGY 210 and PSYC 235) from my Winter 2016 semester. I am hoping that you will grant me Credit Standing (CR) for these courses due to extenuating circumstances.

In March and April of 2016 I had multiple situations that made academic success difficult and caused me great psychological and emotional struggle. During those months I dealt with the following issues: my parents announced their divorce and subsequent cross-country move, I lost a family member unexpectedly, my fiancé and I had to cancel our wedding (causing emotional and financial distress) and my fiancé also underwent surgery to which I was the sole caretaker and income earner. All of these issues in tandem put me through the most difficult few months of my life and made it extremely difficult for me to perform to the best of my ability. Consequentially, I was having difficulty with both sleeping and eating. Additionally, I was experiencing extreme lethargy and emotional turbulence. At the time I did reach out to my professors and let them know my situation, however, even with their additional help I still found it impossible to succeed with my final exams despite showing academic ability earlier in both courses. I am writing to you now regarding these issues because it was recommended to me by both my academic adviser David Youssef and my psychologist. The outcome of my Winter 2016 semester is still causing me a great deal of grief because I feel like it does not adequately reflect my academic capability and is greatly affecting my overall GPA.

Since that unfortunate semester I have, as mentioned above, engaged a psychologist in an effort to cope and overcome these stresses. In the semester after (Summer 2016) I was able to show a more accurate depiction of my abilities and went from a semester GPA of 1.78 (Winter 2016) to a GPA of 2.94 (Summer 2016). Additionally, I chose to take another Physiology course to further show that my original grade was not a proper reflection and successful scored much higher. I am still struggling today with some of the issues but I believe I am on the right track to success and my recent grades reflect that.

Thank-you for reading my letter and giving my situation consideration as my educational journey is very important to me. I applied to Queen's University as an older student (26 years old) in the hope of making my future better by having a more promising career. My goal is to apply to nursing once I've completed my General Life Science degree next summer.

Sincerely,
Mackenzie Fleming