Appeal Concerning Required to Withdraw

Dear Members of the Committee,

I am writing this letter to ask for reconsideration of the decision to withdraw me from the Faculty of Science and the University.

On May 29, 2018 I received a letter in my official correspondence indicating that I was to withdraw from the Faculty of Science for having failed to achieve a GPA of 2.0 and above during my first year of study. Following a talk with my aunt, it was clear to me that many factors beyond my control had impacted my ability to be successful in my studies and I believe that the Faculty should be aware of my circumstances in order to reinstate me for the Fall of 2018 on probation basis.

I was not surprised, but very upset to receive a letter informing me of my withdrawal. To a certain extent, my first semester was not where I expected it to be however, it was decent. During the midst of my first semester, my best friend withdrew from the university and went to USA and I was left alone with no friends to talk to. That’s why, till my midterm, I did good but later in the second half, I did extremely bad. Adding on, pure change of atmosphere from the easy years of high school simply took a toll on me and I just wasn’t able to cope up with the pressure anymore.

My father by trade is a Professional Civil Engineer and as you may know about the market conditions, the housing industry has gone down, and it has negatively affected us as a family. My Father has built 5 houses but none of them have been sold so far. This situation drained all our savings in the day to day house expense. This situation got worse when my savings plus my student loan amount was used for family expenses and my family’s debt kept piling up. Moreover, day to day needs like our car and house was bought through loan from the bank and now since we are unable to pay our monthly installments, the debt is just simply skyrocketing through our roof. Therefore, I started working more hours to help the family situation. Additionally, right after the exams of my second term, we had to fly to New Zealand because my aunt (Father’s sibling) was going through severe illness. She was later diagnosed with terrible arthritis pain where she could barely move. My father wanted us to visit her for her support in this tough time. My Father had to borrow 10,000 $ from a family friend of ours for us for this trip. Given the financial situation of my family, I could not focus on my academic standing during the second term.

Additionally, as soon as my exams were done, we were focused on our aunt’s health and decided to visit her during her illness. She was worried that her illness could be terminal in nature and she may not be able to see us in the future. I along with my father got very busy between visiting the doctors, hospital and home during our visit and I didn’t get a chance to check my official correspondence. I didn’t get any email notification regarding any new correspondence and therefore missed the deadline. After some time, when everything was ruled out and my aunt was finally stable, we decided to return back to Canada. After coming back to Canada, I started working full time to help my family financially.

With the GPA that I had, it said that it was a minimal pass, therefore, I thought that it was enough for me to get into the second year. I was not aware that I had to pass with a certain GPA in each course. As I found out on June 29th out of pure luck that I was RTW, in desperation, I emailed the Academic Success Centre, the Dean of students, 2 of my professors with no luck.

I don’t mean to make excuses for my poor academic performance, but I would like you to understand my situation and consider my appeal for probation in the autumn of 2018.

Even when I was at the university, I was very distracted with the home situation and was unable to focus on my schoolwork. Although this year has been an exceptional one for me, I would welcome a second chance and embrace it as an opportunity to improve myself, I will participate more actively in study groups and most importantly, ensure to be present in each lecture, a downfall of mine is the past. I understand now that I should have communicated with my professors (instead of avoiding them), or even taken a leave of absence. I thought I could handle all of these burdens, and I tried my best, but I was wrong. I love the University of Alberta and if I am reinstated, I will focus much better on my schoolwork, take fewer hours, and manage my time more wisely. Moreover, the family condition is now improving, and I have started to talk to people to improve my mental state. The only reason I want to get back this year is because I’m scared that telling my parents about my poor performance will in turn affect the mental health of theirs, and I cannot let that happen. Being first immigrants in country, the change of lifestyle and the time that we are going through as a family is more than enough for my parents deteriorating mental and physical health conditions. Telling them about my failure to cope up with my studies will just make the situation worse. Furthermore, I have decided to move out at my friend’s place so that I can focus on my studies and get good grades. Please understand that my low GPA that led to my withdrawal does not indicate that I am a bad student. Really, I'm a good student who had one very, very bad year.

For these reasons, I can say that the problems that I had faced in the first year of my studies will most likely not resurface in the future. I hope you give me a second chance so that I can become a better version of myself and make the University and my parents proud.

I will be happy to answer any questions you might have. Thank you for taking time to review my request.