Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: I am writing this academic appeal in regards to my Geography 102 final grade (D). There were several events occurring near the end of the term that drastically affected my final grade. The specific grade marks that were affected were Assignment 3(worth 10 of the final grade- Due on April 6th), and the Lab Exam(worth 15 of the final grade- taken during the week of March 29th). My grandfather passed away on Sunday March 26th and was my second grandparent to pass away within 7 months, and took quite a toll on my family and I. The Geography Lab test was several days after his death and Assignment 3 was due the following week. I found myself very distracted and with a lack of motivation to spend time studying and working versus talking to my family and reflecting.

Along with this, I found myself very overwhelmed with a variety of different commitments that I did not expect to be so demanding near the end of the term. Particularly my commitment as the head of wardrobe for Queen's Musical Theatre's 'Bring It On' musical (I was required to make and find/put together over 60 costumes, and assist with actor dressing during the preparation for, and run of the show). With this position, I had expected to have a supportive Co-head to share half of the responsibilities with, however, my Co-head also had other commitments, and chose not to devote much time to preparation for the musical, and I was left with a very big job during a busy time (all of the costumes were due by April 1st).

This major commitment and a full course load proved difficult but possible to manage, however after the untimely death of my grandfather, I found it all the harder to balance my commitments, my schoolwork and being there for my family, and because of this my grades suffered a significant drop. I believe that had I have been able to put more time into studying for my GPHY 102 lab test, my resulting grade would have been significantly higher, and for the GPHY 102 3rd Lab assignment, I was able to submit it, but was one week late submitting it, and therefore received a mark of 0. In regards to the 3rd Lab assignment, I emailed my professor about the late submission, however he was unable to provide me with a mark after it was a week overdue (I was slightly puzzled with this as in the assignment details, it reads that 10 of the assignment grade will be lost for each day that it is late, and I thought that being one week late would mean that I had the opportunity to receive a grade of 30 as it had only been 7 days).

Overall, I wish that I had been able to balance these struggles and my academics better, but it was a pretty tough few weeks for me surrounding my grandfather's death. I would hate for these few weeks to have a detrimental affect on my GPA, my chances of getting into the Master's program of my choosing, and mostly, I would hate for this grade to cause me to lose my scholarship to attend school at Queen's University(It is currently depending on this grade).

Thank you in advance for your consideration.