Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Dr. Stephenson:

I am appealing to request an Aegrotat standing in MATH121. Unfortunately, due to health issues that worsened during the Winter Term and into the exam period, I was forced to defer four of my five exams to dates later in April and early May. My health condition is an autoimmune disease that severely limited my ability to go to class throughout the Winter Term which left me basically teaching myself the concepts of all of my first-year science courses. The stress of this responsibility, coupled with the degradation of my health, left me in a difficult situation. I was able to write four out of the five exams I had, but as my condition worsened, I had to once again push back my MATH121 exam, the last one of the bunch, to be written in September. I had hoped that over the summer and with a new drug, I would be able to get my autoimmune disease under control and be able to write the upcoming exam in September. Sadly, I have seen no improvement in my condition; in fact, my symptoms have become more severe. After consulting with specialists at Women¿¿s College Hospital and Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, after the repeated failures of the treatments they tried to induce remission in me with, I have decided to take a year of medical leave from Queen¿¿s and opt for surgery to try to overcome my debilitating disease. I will be having at least three surgeries throughout the year to deal with my medical condition, the first scheduled to occur in early September, which leaves me unable to write the deferred exam. I am not one to back down from a challenge and I often overextend myself. This may have led to me overestimating my body¿¿s ability to handle the amount of stress writing exams while having an autoimmune disease could be. When I came to write my last exam in May, I could not physically do it, which led to me deferring it a second time. Writing the exam is not an option for me at this point as most of my days will likely be spent recovering from one surgery or preparing for the next. My hope is that these surgeries will allow me to live a relatively normal life once again and allow me to resume my studies in Biology at Queen¿¿s. Seeing as I plan to focus in Biology, this means that math will not be a subject in my academic portfolio. I have never submitted an appeal for an Aegrotat standing before and I hope that once I get my condition under control, it won¿¿t be something that I will have to do again.

Thank you for your consideration.