Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To whom it may concern,

I am writing this appeal letter to appeal the grades of all the courses I took during the Fall 2017 semester. I am asking to appeal DEVS 220, DEVS 320, and POLS 482 by dropping these courses. I am also asking to appeal DEVS 340 as a credit. Lastly, I am also hoping to appeal RELS 393 by dropping it, I took this course in the Winter 2017 semester, however, this appeal is due to different circumstances that are unrelated to the other four courses mentioned above.

RELS 393: On April 8th, 2017, my great-grandmother passed away. Due to this, I failed to submit my final assignment for this course that was worth 40. This course was also a religion course on Buddhism, and my great-grandmother was a strong Buddhist, submitting the work at the time was specifically more difficult than any of the other courses I had been taking. Also, at the time, I did not realize that I could appeal a course, and by the time I realized I was able to, I thought it was too late because I missed the deadline. I have attached the death certificate for your review.

DEVS 220, 320 and POLS 482: During my Fall 2017 semester I was experiencing some mental health issues. Throughout the semester I did not leave my house or submit my required assignments for my courses. I was not speaking to anyone about my problems during the semester. However, I have been on exchange at the Bader International Study Center and was advised to see a counselor on sight and since then have been addressing my problems in hopes of having a more successful semester and final year at Queen¿¿s.

DEVS 340: This course is the only course I passed during the fall semester, however, only passed with a ¿¿D-¿. I knew the Professor of this course personally so I made more of an effort to submit the assignments, however, as the semester progressed, I was unable to focus more and again failed to submit assignments, resulting in the mark I received.

To conclude, my marks from the past semester is not a reflection of who I am as a student, in past years I have usually gotten average grades, but never as low as these. This situation started at the beginning of 2017, during my second year I noticed a change in my mentality but did not think it was serious enough to address. I was struggling with focusing on school, but I still had enough focus to complete my assignments. However, this progressed more in my third year and ended up being unable to submit almost anything, I also was very involved at Queen¿¿s in my first two years, and during this semester I completely stopped participating in all my commitments. Initially, I had the intention of repeating my courses next year hoping to make up for the grades I received, however, after meeting with an academic advisor at Queen's I was told I could try requesting an appeal, which is the reason why my appeal letter missed the deadline.

Since being at the castle and I have been using the counseling services, I feel myself making progress, and my grades here have significantly improved. I would not say that I am completely back to my normal state of mind, however, the counseling services have helped, and I plan to make this semester as well as my next year a Queen¿¿s a successful one. As well as continue attending counseling during the summer, and next year.

As mentioned before, I have included the death certificate regarding my RELS 393 class, as well as a letter from the counselor I have been seeing this semester regarding the other courses.

Thank you for your time and consideration. If there is anything else you require or need more elaboration on please let me know.

Warm regards,
Nikysha Chow