Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: I am currently a third year Life Sciences student at Queen's. I am taking the online version of PHYSP20 this semester and the evaluations for the course include two essays and a final. Our first assignment was worth 20 and was due on February 7th. The second was worth 40 and due March 6th, which we received the marks for on April 1st. I was very disappointed in my grade as I am a good student. I graduated highschool with an IB Diploma, have been on the Dean's Honor List every year of my undergrad, and am set to graduate with Distinction. I am hoping to pursue a career in medicine and will be applying to medical schools this year. My grades so far have been straight As to ensure that I will be able to get into medschool and pursue my dream of becoming a Pediatric Surgeon. This would be the only course that will drive down my GPA and most certainly impact my medical school admission. For the two assignments I believed I was very prepared and had written great essays. However, my marks did not seem to reflect that. When I contacted the TA about seeing the rubric to know where I lost the marks, they mentioned that no rubrics were used when marking these assignments. I have no clue how to improve for the exam nor did I expect that this course would turn out the way it has. I had only 20 of the course mark before the drop deadline which was not enough to predict my performance in the course. Furthermore, the last assignment was due March 6th and then handed back to us very late. I have tried contacting the professor and have gotten no response. I wish to appeal to drop the course late because I did not have a substantial amount of the course mark back before the drop deadline and now that I do, it is shaping up to be a low mark that will negatively impact my academics and consequently, medical school admission.