Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean,

I am writing this letter to request an aegrotat standing in one of my courses: ENGL 223. The current situation is that I am in a failing position for the course due to an assignment that I was unable to complete due to my declining mental health. For ENGL 223, the assessments were 2 essays, a final exam, and an attendance/participation mark. I submitted and received the grades for all of those except for the first essay which was due in late October. In October/early November, I had reached out to my PROF to let her know that I was struggling a lot mentally which resulted in my inability to submit the essay and missed some class attendance. The PROF reached out to let me know that I could book an appointment with her to get caught up with the essay but I had a lot of anxieties around meeting one-to-one and hesitated on coming. Instead, I thought I could handle the workload on my own and forced myself to come to classes again more regularly since the PROF told me that a lot of the course material was based on in-class discussions. Even though I was severely depressed, and it was hard to find the motivation to come to school, I at least didn??t want to miss any more classes. In the end of the year, my grade for attendance and participation was 65% (worth 10% of grade) because even though I did come to classes, I was hesitant in participating both in class and via email (since I was really anxious about the essay and having to contact the PROF again). For the second essay which was due in December, I mustered up the courage to contact my professor again to ask whether she would still accept my two essays, now that I had submitted an academic consideration request for the dates from October ?? December, but my PROF told me that she would only accept my second essay and not the first since she viewed the ??academic consideration on a case-by-case basis? so even if the academic consideration dates covered the missed assessments dates, since I didn??t book an appointment with her in person in October, she was not willing to be flexible. I did explain to her my reason for not meeting with her personally, but her decision on only accepting the second essay was firm. So even though I submitted the Essay 1 in December and thought I wrote that one very well, she was not going to mark it. However, she did let me know that I did very well on the final exam and received 93% (worth 30% of grade) so there was still a small chance that I could pass the course once I had submitted the 2nd essay which was worth 35% of my grade. The final exam consisted of questions revolving around the course??s assigned readings and text/poem passage analysis, which I did well on thanks to attending classes more regularly but unfortunately, I did really badly on the 2nd essay and received a mark of 39% due to me not being able to give it my best since I was really struggling mentally again and overall anxieties about failing the course. Or, my PROF marked it a bit more harshly, I'm not sure. Although I did attend in class essay writing workshops that the PROF had throughout the semester, in the end my mental health negatively impacted my confidence and overall essay writing performance.

At this point, the accumulated grades puts me in a failing position (48%) but if the first assessment was disregarded, I would still be able to pass the course with a 64% I believe. In this appeal, I??ll attach a doctor??s note that I submitted to my PROF and academic consideration team to verify the severity of my depression and inability to submit work by the assigned deadlines. Although the PROF told me to come meet her, I hope that you are able to understand that from my side, it is very hard thing to do. Even when I was attending classes, I was still feeling a lot of anxiety. I??m not sure if my PROF will be very supportive of my appeal for an Aegrotat standing considering that I didn??t do so well on the essay and did not reach out to her, but I truly think that my performance on the exam is a better representation of my learning and understanding of the course material, considering that an essay is graded subjectively. I hope that after reviewing my letter and situation, you are able to consider granting me an aegrotat standing.

Thank you for taking time out of your day to review this appeal,
Vanessa