Things can go wrong when you’re a student, we all know that. But sometimes things can go very wrong and it threatens your degree. There are two stages of appeal, the first is a Faculty Appeal –which is what we’re talking about on this page- and the second is a Senate Appeal which is the next stage if you Faculty Appeal fails, so we’ll cover that later.
So first things first, the University’s Faculty Appeals process covers anyone who…
- …is told they have to transfer to a different degree e.g. Honours to General or Masters to Diploma.
- …is put into suspension to told to repeat a year.
- …is told they have to redraw from the university
- … has to appeal their Honours classification.
There are three distinct categories for appeals and you must have grounds of appeal that fall under one of more of these categories, the grounds for appeal are:
- That there were procedural irregularities in the assessment process.
- That there was inadequate assessment, prejudice or bias on the part of one or more of the examiners.
- That there were unknown medical, personal or other circumstances which affected your performance.
The appeal process is in fact pretty simple; you need to write to the university explaining your circumstances. Everyone’s story is different so you might want to come and speak Nicola or Alison at ASK and they will help you pick out the most important parts of your story and give you some advice on what evidence you might be able to get to support your case.
While the appeals process is in itself simple we realise that having to appeal –especially if you have already had a pretty rubbish time of it – isn’t always easy so Nicola and Alison are also here to give you support through the appeals process. They can give you advice on your letter, suggest changes to help make your situation as clear as possible to someone who doesn’t know you and basically be there for you throughout your appeal whether you need someone to talk to, someone to contact the university to check details on your behalf or even to lend you an envelope to submit your finished appeal in.
There is one thing you need to know about appeals though as it may affect your decision to do on; you can’t graduate until the appeals process is over and for most people this will mean that you won’t graduate at the normal time but in the next batch of graduations, so if you are meant to graduate in July you’ll have to wait until November and vice versa.
Over the last academic year a large of ASK’s work involved appeals so we’re no strangers to the things that can and do go wrong for students so if you think you have a case get in touch and we’ll talk you through what you need to do, you can also check out our quick guide to appeals Faculty Appeal or if you want the uni’s full procedure.
