Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean of the Queens University Arts and Science Faculty,

I am appealing the final grade of course LLCU432, Semester in Shanghai, as I feel as if my grade is inaccurate. To begin, the Shanghai program, run through Queens, ensures students partake in standard exchange courses, with the exception of LLCU432, a course where students are ensured a Queens University letter grade. Throughout this course, my grades have been provided by professor James Miller, explain the lowest mark I received throughout the course is an 84. However, my final grade as shown on SOLUS indicates significantly lower grades. According to the syllabus weighting, versus the grades I received, I should have ended the course with an 89.9, yet SOLUS indicates I received an 80. All my grades have been explained to me via email by professor James Miller. He has indicated the following grades to me according to the syllabus:

collaboration 5/5
proposal 18/20
journal 19.5/20
final presentation 21/25
final report 26.4/30
total 70.4/100

If you add these numbers together, the sum is not 70.4, but instead 89.9. Yet somehow my SOLUS grade indicates an 80. All the numbers I have been provided with, despite many hours of manipulating numbers to try and see how my grade was lowered to a 70.4, was beyond my understanding. When I inquired about a potential miscalculation, I was told that ¿¿These are raw scores, the total is a weighted score¿. However, the weighting we were given on the syllabus reflects the numbers as seen above. It still does not add up. After inquiring yet again, it was vaguely explained to me that despite being a Queen¿¿s course, the mark I received was based on a Fudan University (the institute I attended in China) grading scheme. The Fudan University grading scheme indicates only 30 of the class may receive an A level grade. This was not explained to us on the syllabus, nor during the course, and it is troublesome seeing a grade I worked hard for diminished due to a grading system my peers and I were entirely unaware of. I am unsure why a Queens¿¿ LLCU course is being graded based on a foreign grading system, however I would appreciate witnessing a re-evaluation of my overall grade as the numbers I have been given do not add up. I have worked very hard for these grades, and it is important to me that these are accurate and truly reflect my performance in the course.

Thank you for your time and assistance, it is greatly appreciated.
Best Regards,

Martyne Alphonso