Guide to Completing an Academic Appeal Application Form

In this section you will need to state on which grounds your academic appeal is being made. You can choose more than one ground, if you feel that is appropriate to your complaint.

Some examples might be:

• You were hospitalised or unable to engage with the Extenuating Circumstances process due to ill health (including mental ill health) or you were so distressed as a result of what happened to you that you didn't think about additional consideration until too late.
  • there were circumstances that significantly affected the student’s academic performance, where for compelling reasons, the relevant Extenuating Circumstances Panel was not made aware of the circumstances through the Short-term Illness and other Extenuating Circumstances Procedure;
• Your exam contained questions which were on topics not included in your syllabus, or your exam contained major errors (such as mathematical) which made the questions unanswerable
  • there occurred a material irregularity (an administrative or procedural error) that had a significant impact on a student’s performance and which had not been determined prior to a Board of Examiners;
• You were treated differently and worse than others on your course by one or more of the examiners. You have evidence which supports this.
  • there is substantive evidence that one or more of the examiners can be shown to have been biased or prejudiced against the student in one or more specific assessments.

Here is where you describe why you are appealing. Make sure what you write is clear, and as concise as possible - try not to include things which are not directly linked to your appeal, as you will have limited space to explain your case.

You should be clear on:

• the date of the official notification of the decision (for example, your results)
• which modules and assessments were affected
• what exactly you are unhappy about
• why you are dissatisfied with what has happened

You can add something in your appeal about how this issue has impacted you, for example:

• has it affected you financially?
• has it had a negative effect on your wellbeing?

Be clear on what consequences this issue has had for you directly.

If you can explain what impact your issue has had, this will make your reason for appeal clearer to the Casework Team and Appeal Assessor.

If you have any evidence (e.g. medical records, letters or emails) to show the impact of the issue, you should note this in your appeal, and include this with the submission.

An example might look like this: 
I experienced sudden and unexpected extenuating circumstances on the day before my exam and I could not attempt it. I was in a traffic accident and was hospitalised for treatment. I did not apply for mitigation because it was impossible for me to do so, as I had serious injuries and was kept in the hospital for a number of weeks for rehabilitation. As evidence, I include my accident report (see document A), my hospital admission and discharge letters showing the duration of my time in hospital (documents B & C), and a medical document detailing my injuries and treatment plan (document D).  

My exam was marked as zero. I would like to request an attempt to resubmit this assessment as a first attempt given the circumstances I faced during this time. 

You will need to provide all the evidence you have to support your argument. The casework team will not have access to any course specific documents, so you will need to include everything which is relevant to your academic appeal.
This could includes things like:

• email communications between you and the department relating to your appeal
• any communications you received which are contrary to UCL assessment policies
• a short timeline of events
• independent evidence to support your extenuating circumstances. For example, a letter from your doctor or other registered medical practitioner that confirms you were unable to complete an EC application form on time.

If any of your evidence is not in English, you will need to have it translated by an accredited translator. UCL cannot consider any untranslated documents.

You are limited to 10 uploads here, so if you need to, try to collate or resize elements where you can. 

Our advisors can:

• tell you more about the procedures, what to expect, and what is expected of you
• advise you about drafting your statement (but can't complete one for you), deciding on the evidence you need to collect and putting together a strong case
• accompany you to a panel meeting
• if you are not satisfied with the response from UCL, we can advise you on how you can take your complaint forward outside of the university.