Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing to you to request that two of my winter courses, MATH 210 and MATH 281 be dropped from my transcript, after the official date for dropping courses, please. My final mark in both courses was an F, and I am hoping that you will consider the extenuating circumstances that contributed significantly to my poor showing.

For summer employment last year I worked as a wakeboard and waterski instructor for Muskoka Summer Water Sports. Part of my job involved traveling to private cottages to run clinics, and on August 4, 2016 I was assigned to drive a boat for the filming of an episode of The Real Housewives of Toronto. I pulled a banana boat ridden by four of the housewives, and I performed my job safely, properly and professionally as I always did, and everyone had a really fun day. In March of 2017, I was served legal papers detailing a lawsuit brought against my employer and me, by one of the housewives and her husband, for 1,100,000.00. I was extremely upset to read the long list of completely false accusations of negligence leading to physical and emotional injuries described in the lawsuit. Over the next several weeks I had difficulty eating, sleeping and concentrating because of the defamatory allegations. During this time I had to have several discussions with a lawyer and an investigator, review all of the pertinent events and prepare and record an official statement. This all occurred during the final weeks of the semester and during preparation time for exams, and as much as I tried to ignore the lawsuit, it was nearly impossible to do so. In hindsight, I should have reached out to my professors and explained my situation at this point in time, but I was hesitant to ask for any special treatment as I had never had to do so in the past. I sincerely regret not having requested some type of accommodation regarding the writing of my final exams, as well as some counseling. I was definitely feeling completely overwhelmed and somewhat paralyzed by my situation.

My course marks before the final examinations were 69 in MATH 210 and 74 in MATH 281. While not stellar, these marks had set me up for decent success in these courses, and I had been feeling confident throughout the term that I would do reasonably well. I had received a MATH 281 midterm exam mark that was well above the class average, and I was proud of that accomplishment since that course is well known for being extremely difficult. I do not know what my final marks were, but I know I had to have written two very poor exams in order to have received a failing grade in each course.

As a result of the above, I am formally requesting that MATH 210 and MATH 281 be dropped from my academic record, please. I will be re-taking these courses in my 4th year and know that I will have better success. I plan on reaching out to a counselor for support in the future if I ever find myself having such a difficult time again. I sincerely appreciate your consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

Cameron McMillan