Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

New Information: The question was posed to me: The Associate Dean has reviewed your appeal to waive the 21 day or one term deadline and has asked for a more in depth explanation as to why you did not appeal within the required 21 day or one term. This particular appeal is not necessary to explain the circumstances during the 2013/14 period but what the circumstances were between then and now which prevented you from appealing.
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My response: You pose a good question and I've taken a bit of time in the midst of my initial Winter term activities to think about it. I received the diagnosis of my illness almost a year after the end of my unsuccessful first year at Queen's. I began my treatment and was cleared to return to school, after which there was a long period of uncertainty about whether I would be able to cope with the demands of the Software Design program, especially given the results of my first attempt. It took over a year to get a sense of the level that I could perform at and the academic results that I could achieve. After successfully repeating first year, it became a matter of seeing if I could sustain that success in second year while continuing to deal with the effects of my illness, which turned out to be the case. Last summer, after the completion of my second year, I had the benefit of getting a summer job that was closely aligned with the content of my program at Queen's and that was the first time that I clearly saw that I had a chance to pursue my dream of a career in software design. It was at that point that it became obvious to me that the presence of my original first year marks on my transcript would be detrimental to being considered on equal terms with others in a very competitive job environment upon graduation. This especially hit home when I had to apply for an NSERC grant for work. I had to submit my official transcript and while I was waiting to hear, I was very worried that they would not consider me because of the original marks. The presence of those original marks on my transcript could also lead to having to disclose to prospective employers the medical cause of my poor first year results, which they would not otherwise be entitled to or need to know. Investigating further, I became aware of the opportunity to appeal to have those original first year marks removed from my record which, after consulting with the office of the Ombudsman, lead me to file the appeal to waive the time limit to do so.

All this being said, I still am managing the medical circumstances which has also contributed to the delay in submission of the appeal. Thank you for reviewing and if you need further details please don't hesitate to ask.