Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To Whom It May Concern:

I feel lucky to be given the opportunity to appeal my dismissal from Queen's University for twelve months and would like to do so. Although it did not come to me as a surprise, I was very upset and angry to myself for my poor academic performance.
Studying at a University is a full-time job and I am not afraid to admit that for the past four semesters I have not, and at times was not able to quite treated it that way.
I have no blames for any of my professors, nor their work. I understand it is my duty to identify what information has most importance in each of my classes, which is certainly a hard challenge for myself.

Since July 2014 I have been in dental treatment which has had a bizarre impact on myself, my brain and my abilities to concentrate. In my case, two of my upper front teeth (numbers 6 and 9) are not in genetic predisposition and are thus simply missing. Due to the gaps from the missing teeth, this has caused an odd movement of my entire jaw and teeth during the last couple years when I completely lost my baby teeth. Now that I am almost 21 years of age I am finally old enough to get my implants to fill these gaps and finish my treatment, in other words, my teeth will finally be at rest and not moving constantly.
Considering that I needed to switch my 'Invisaline' braces every week for a slow relocation of my teeth, it was very painful and distracting to me and often gave me serious cluster headaches.
Moreover, I am an international student from Germany and my teeth have been in treatment for almost a decade by one orthodontist, which my family did not want to change. Thus, the even greater distraction academically was that I needed to fly back and forth in between Canada and Germany every five to six weeks to make adjustments and get new sets of braces. Trips like these were extremely exhausting and academically disturbing, especially considering the stay does not last any longer than two days.

Over the past 4 semesters I have especially struggled with the General Organic Chemistry I (CHEM 281) course, which I had thought, I would be able to complete without extra help by a tutor. This is not the case and I will be looking to seek help by multiple tutors next semester. Additionally, I was unable to retake Sociology 122 over the last two semesters, as I was not able to join the course because of my academic plan, and therefore could not make up for failing that class.

Please understand that my low GPA that led to my dismissal does not display that I am a bad student. I really am a good and very motivated student who had a couple of bad semesters. I hope you can give me a second chance. Thank you for considering this appeal.

Sincerely,
Aaron Brecht