Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To whom it may concern,

I am writing this appeal letter in an effort to have my Summer 2018 grade in MATH 121 removed from my transcript due to my struggle with late-identified ADHD and its associated effects on my mental health. In the paragraphs below I will outline why I believe I qualify for a late drop.

My entire life, I've been a spacy and distracted person - I've always sort of known, as did my teachers, that I struggled with a form of ADHD, but my family didn't have the money to pursue the testing when I was younger. Since the start of my university career, my struggles with it have affected my schooling greatly - I've almost never, through two years at University of Guelph and two years so far at Queen's, been able to focus on my schoolwork, spend any time whatsoever in a seat studying, or be able to handle a full course load of five courses. I consistently struggle with being able to commit the required time to topics that I'm not uniquely interested in, and it shows in my grades. My attention deficiencies have always been amplified with the subject of mathematics due to the anxiety it causes me - my brain tends to get all jumbled and it takes me hours on hours to finish what should be a forty-five minute commitment. I am referring here to watching one week of MATH 121 lectures, which usually clock in at around 45 mins to an hour per week, where it often took me upwards of 5 or 6 hours to work through them all. This resulted in my never being prepared for any of the evaluations, and missing some outright, while being too far behind in the course consistently to handle weekly tasks. This isn't the first time I've tried to work through MATH 121 either - I attempted the course in my first semester at Queen's, but found the exact same focus and anxiety problems relating to it. I finally decided enough was enough, and I needed to pursue getting myself tested for ADHD.

I began the process of ADHD testing this summer through the RARC at Queen's University. I spent 200 dollars to go through the initial first screening, a three hour session with my assigned psychologist to determine whether I needed to spend the full 2000 dollars to see if I had ADHD. The results of my screening determined I like have ADHD, and have been living with it unmedicated through my entire school career. Many of the results of the tests I took were indicative of a high/unreasonable level of distractibility that has interfered with my schoolwork, and I finally am starting to see clearly why I struggle so much with a lot of this stuff.

I am now in the process of getting to do my full screening to officially be diagnosed with ADHD. I'm waiting on my elementary school to send me some report cards and EQAO results, but beyond that, I am good to move forward with testing and hopefully find some clarity to an issue that has plagued me my entire life. Due to the process I went through over the summer, and the steps I am now taking to ensure I am doing well, I am applying for a late drop on my MATH 121 grade in Summer 2018. I am happy to provide any documentation necessary about my screenings and tests with the RARC at Queen's.

Thank you,

Kaelan Lupton
20036736