Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Dr. Jill Atkinson,

I am writing to appeal my final grade in the course PHYS 117 (Fall/Winter 2021/2022) and am requesting a credit standing in the course.
The day before my first exam of the fall term, I tested positive for COVID-19. Subsequently I was notified by public health that I had to isolate for 10 days. I applied for academic consideration to have my exams deferred. As I was among a large group of students who tested positive, all the exams were moved to an online format and/or deferred. Once they released that all the deferred exams were going to be in the first week of winter term I panicked. I panicked because that meant I had to study for all my exams in which were three CHEM courses and the PHYS course and start five new courses (three different CHEM courses, a MATH course and the second half of the PHYS course). I was extremely overwhelmed and stressed and made the decision to write the PHYS 117 exam on the original date to try and lighten the load of work I would face in the first week back to school. When it came time to book a time slot through Examity, I was given the option a period of 24 hours starting at 7 pm on the 17th. By the time I had gone to book a spot there were no reasonable time slots available, I had to write it at 7:30 pm on the 17th. This was hard for me because I have an accommodation for extra time, so the three-hour exam turned to a four-and-a-half-hour exam. A side note about my accommodation, I was supposed to meet at the beginning of the year to discuss my accommodations but had my appointment cancelled because they did not have time to meet with me before the deadline, therefore they took my basic accommodations from the summer semester and just copied them over. I would have liked to discuss the accommodation of not writing exams at night because my medication for ADHD wears off. So 7:30 pm comes, my ADHD meds have worn off and I am still dealing with some symptoms of covid such as fatigue, headache, and congestion. I write my exam from 7:30 pm to 12:00 am, feeling more unwell as each hour passes. Halfway through the exam I felt so unwell I wished I could have stopped writing the exam, but I knew I could not. Recognizing how all of this would likely have impacted my success in the course, I emailed the professor asking if there was any way I could rewrite the exam on the deferred date. She responded and told me that it would not be possible to do so. I was very upset and stressed. Once I got my grade, it was clear I had failed the exam as my mark dropped significantly to a 52%. This was devastating. This was the only exam I chose to write at this time, and because of how terrible I felt I decided to not write any other exams until their deferred dates.
I have applied for an upper year transfer to the engineering chemistry program at Queens, and because of this course my GPA falls just below the cut-off. If the course was changed to a credit standing, my GPA would make the cut-off. In addition, I am meeting to have my accommodations adjusted and updated to better improve my success in the future.
Writing the exam while covid-19 positive, under stress, with my medication worn off, and without proper accommodations in place, I was unable to achieve at a level that matches my ability. This was the first time I had ever been faced with a situation like this, I didn't have the experience to know how it was going to affect me. If faced with a similar situation in the future I would handle things very differently. Having this grade changed to a CR would make such a difference to my mental health and well-being as I look towards next year.

Thank you very much for your consideration.

Kind regards,

Jordan Chiabai
20236133