Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean,

I am sorry for inconveniencing you at this time of the year. My name is Vanessa Ying, and I am a first year student who appeals to you now to drop a course I am taking off my transcript. I am a first year who has made a big mistake. This semester, I decided to take BIO 103 as one of my courses. Even though I am an Arts student, I wanted to take a biology course to balance out my art courses and hopefully learn more. However, I did not know about the deadline to drop the course until a week had passed after that date, but I was too stubborn to think about dropping the course and conceding defeat. It was only until now I realized that even though I have tried my best, I cannot understand the course material and as a result, I will fail the course.

I struggled with the material, and I even asked friends for help. But because I was a first year student who didn't know my way around, I also didn't know there was a tutoring program here. If I did, I would have immediately sought help there. It was one out of many mistakes that I deeply regret making.

Another was being stubborn; I thought that if I kept studying, things would improve. Unfortunately, I became more and more stressed as I struggled to understand the material in biology, and I had no idea how to handle lab work. I was not meant for the science academia, after all. On top of the stress of biology, I also had to work hard on my psychology class, which is the class I want to do a medial in. The accumulated stress that I have from both biology, a course that I am not improving in, and psychology, a course that I need to be academically successful in, has made me consider going to the Counseling Services on campus.

I am a student who wants to go into animation, and hopefully, into Ringling College. The program that I want to attend is Computer Animation, which is extremely competitive due to only accepting 60 people worldwide. They desire students with high GPAs. But I don't want my hard work overlooked by a grade that I not only struggled with, but will also bring down my whole GPA. I am a first year who didn't ask for more help before, and who was too optimistic to see that things would not get better. But I have been humbled by my experience, and now, I finally ask for help.

Thank you for taking your time to read this,
Vanessa Ying