Hey everyone,

Here's the sitch. Throughout this semester I'll admit I slacked a bit, but it was 100% due to stress and being overwhelmed by University. I commute from home, and home isn't exactly my favourite place (my family gets into quite a few arguments and relies on me a lot more than the average university student). I found it completely impossible to find a quiet area alone and stress free to study this entire year.

I was in a moderately bad car accident on April 11th, and it shook me up a bit. I had bad whiplash, and my side effects affected my attention. Since my exams were immediately after, I bombed all of them, except one, which I did pretty well on. The interim report was released, and I calculated my average to be 2.9. (SUCKS)

I am wondering what I can possibly do to raise my average above the 3.0 cutoff, and continue at McMaster next year. Is it possible for me to get my one well written exam remarked?? Is there anything else I can do??

Please help!! :(

Originally Posted by lauricas

Hey everyone,

Here's the sitch. Throughout this semester I'll admit I slacked a bit, but it was 100% due to stress and being overwhelmed by University. I commute from home, and home isn't exactly my favourite place (my family gets into quite a few arguments and relies on me a lot more than the average university student). I found it completely impossible to find a quiet area alone and stress free to study this entire year.

I was in a moderately bad car accident on April 11th, and it shook me up a bit. I had bad whiplash, and my side effects affected my attention. Since my exams were immediately after, I bombed all of them, except one, which I did pretty well on. The interim report was released, and I calculated my average to be 2.9. (SUCKS)

I am wondering what I can possibly do to raise my average above the 3.0 cutoff, and continue at McMaster next year. Is it possible for me to get my one well written exam remarked?? Is there anything else I can do??

Please help!! :(

Perhaps you can visit the professors you had this term and see if you can get any mark increases on any assignments/labs/midterms and your final? It obviously depends on what policies are in place for the class so see the course outline for more information if there is any. I see your in the faculty of Social Science, so I'm assuming a lot of the marking is subjective so it may play out in your favor to increase your average.

Academic advising for SocSci is closed until June 3rd, but I suggest that you call them and make an appointment ASAP (the office is still open for calls). You may be able to request a petition for special consideration or be reinstated if you can outline how you will change your situation (e.g. moving out to your own place/with roommates) to do better next year in a great letter.
Their contact info is here: http://www.socialsciences.mc master...demic-advising

You might as well try, because you have nothing to lose. You need one more grade point in any course (assuming you took ten 3-unit courses), so email all your profs to ask about your marks. If you're really close to the next grade point in any, see if they'll bump you. It's also good to make sure that they calculated everything correctly.

If not, then no there isn't anything you can do except apply for reinstatement.

About your home situation/commuting: you need to figure out a way so that it doesn't interfere with school, otherwise you can't expect next year to be any better. Move closer to campus, ideally. A lot of students have to deal with a lot of really stressful things in their personal lives, and if you're having trouble dealing with it you can see a counselor or someone to help you out. If you do get kicked out and apply for reinstatement, you'll need to show that these issues have been remedied.

About your car accident, you should have deferred one or more of your exams if it had that much of an impact on your performance. Now, it's too late to do anything about that, but if you talk to an advisor you may be able to appeal getting kicked out on health/compassionate grounds. It's a (very) long shot, but talk to an advisor anyways because they can tell you all your options. If you're confident that you can do way better, reinstatement might even be a better option because then your low marks get erased. But then again, there's no guarantee you will get reinstated.

Basically what I got from your post was a bunch of excuses about why you didn't do well and then asking for a way to get an average that you didn't legitimately earn so that you don't need to deal with the consequences. That may not actually be the case, but that's kind of how it came across in your post. There are challenges and stuff in life that may be out of your control, but how you respond to them is something that you CAN control. It's fine to make mistakes and make the wrong decisions as long as you take responsibility for it, acknowledge it and most importantly learn from it so that you don't repeat the same mistakes. If you do apply for reinstatement, make sure to emphasize that in your letter.

Originally Posted by starfish

Basically what I got from your post was a bunch of excuses about why you didn't do well and then asking for a way to get an average that you didn't legitimately earn so that you don't need to deal with the consequences. That may not actually be the case, but that's kind of how it came across in your post. There are challenges and stuff in life that may be out of your control, but how you respond to them is something that you CAN control. It's fine to make mistakes and make the wrong decisions as long as you take responsibility for it, acknowledge it and most importantly learn from it so that you don't repeat the same mistakes. If you do apply for reinstatement, make sure to emphasize that in your letter.

I second this part. I'm sure this is something that they hear A LOT. University is stressful - but so is life. I managed to get on the Dean's List with my toddler climbing all over me half the time I was trying to study and a 45 minute commute in each direction. The school provides FOUR libraries where you can study and there are always empty classrooms/lecture halls available as well.
If you do look for reinstatement, make sure that you're focusing on how you screwed up and EXACTLY HOW you will overcome it for next year.

"I managed to get on the Dean's List with my toddler climbing all over me half the time I was trying to study and a 45 minute commute in each direction."

I came to this site, which is supposed to provide information and help for struggling students about their issues, in hopes to find answers that I couldn't find anywhere else on the internet. I am frustrated and struggling to save my education after a few mistakes were made. I explained my situation, in full, to provide a better understanding of my specific situation, not to give excuses, I rushed to post it which is why it may have sounded that way.

I also didn't ask for you to brag to me about me how well you've delt with your stress, and how well you've succeeded compared to me. Everybody deals with stress at different levels, and this type of comment does not make me feel safe and secure in asking for help on this site. The attitude you've shown in your comment shows conceitedness, and for struggling students who feel hopeless like myself, it isn't appreciated.

Anyways, I will be contacting my profs and the academic advising centre as soon as it re-opens. I'm more confused and concerned about what the consequences of my actions are exactly, there's been many sites telling me many different things, and I'd like to know where I stand as of right now:

What does it mean to be reinstated? Do I lose the credits I gained this year so far, do I have to start over entirely??

Does the interim report mean there is still room for my exams to be remarked and my grades to change, or is the final report that is concrete and cannot be changed?

And how has anyone else delt with being so close to passing on to the next level? Money issues are keeping me from moving away from my home, so I'm unsure of how to deal with this.

Thanks for the information so far, I do understand there are consequences for my low grades but I don't believe this should cost me my entire education.

I apologize for my shortness, I didn't mean to come across as conceited or condescending - just to impress upon you that the people in charge of reinstatement decisions will want more from you than reasons why you did poorly, especially one as common as stress.
This question is asked dozens of times on macinsiders at the end of each term, so sometimes it's difficult to differentiate between the 'omigawd i partied 2 hard n my parents are gonna kill me. heeeeelp' people and those who genuinely struggled. I may have had several celebratory glasses of wine this evening and misjudged your post - I'm very sorry.

Reinstatement would mean that your academic record is reset - you lose all of the credits for the courses you've taken, whether you earned a 0 or a 12. Full information can be found from the registrar here: http://registrar.mcmaster.ca /calen...13/pg1502.html

I'm not sure about your grades still being able to be changed, that may depend on the individual courses.

Originally Posted by lauricas

"I managed to get on the Dean's List with my toddler climbing all over me half the time I was trying to study and a 45 minute commute in each direction."

I came to this site, which is supposed to provide information and help for struggling students about their issues, in hopes to find answers that I couldn't find anywhere else on the internet. I am frustrated and struggling to save my education after a few mistakes were made. I explained my situation, in full, to provide a better understanding of my specific situation, not to give excuses, I rushed to post it which is why it may have sounded that way.

I also didn't ask for you to brag to me about me how well you've delt with your stress, and how well you've succeeded compared to me. Everybody deals with stress at different levels, and this type of comment does not make me feel safe and secure in asking for help on this site. The attitude you've shown in your comment shows conceitedness, and for struggling students who feel hopeless like myself, it isn't appreciated.

Anyways, I will be contacting my profs and the academic advising centre as soon as it re-opens. I'm more confused and concerned about what the consequences of my actions are exactly, there's been many sites telling me many different things, and I'd like to know where I stand as of right now:

What does it mean to be reinstated? Do I lose the credits I gained this year so far, do I have to start over entirely??

Does the interim report mean there is still room for my exams to be remarked and my grades to change, or is the final report that is concrete and cannot be changed?

And how has anyone else delt with being so close to passing on to the next level? Money issues are keeping me from moving away from my home, so I'm unsure of how to deal with this.

Thanks for the information so far, I do understand there are consequences for my low grades but I don't believe this should cost me my entire education.

I think ashleigh was just pointing out that it's entirely possible for people to deal with life and school, you just need to figure out how to do it for whatever life issues you're dealing with. She was able to figure out how to do it for herself, and you need to figure out how to do it for you. I think you overreacted to her post a bit, it wasn't bragging or comparing herself to you or anything like that. I took her post as more of an encouragement than anything else :/

One thing I have had really driven home to me this year (for various reasons and in various circumstances that I'm not going to go into detail about here): nobody likes to hear that other people were able to overcome challenges and they couldn't. People like to feel that if anybody else was in their situation they would have done just as badly, because then it's not their "fault"...but the reality is, you're going to screw up and people are going to deal with some things better than you do, and you're going to have to learn from your mistakes and figure out how to "catch up".

Also, in terms of feeling "safe and secure", you can't post things on a public forum like this and expect to not be judged in some way. If you're not comfortable with that, then you probably shouldn't post, and I mean that in the nicest possible way.

Being reinstated means you start over with an average of zero on zero credits. I don't believe you retain any credits you've earned so far, it's supposed to be a clean slate start-over kind of thing.

The interim report means that grades can be changed. I think the final report can be changed too under certain circumstances (if there was an error with your grade, for example) but it's more difficult to do.

If money issues are keeping you from moving away from home, and living at home is keeping you from doing well in school, then maybe you would benefit from taking a year off to work and earn money so you can move away while you're in school. Because if you continue in school without changing anything, then you're just throwing your money away.

The thing is, the consequences of getting a CA below 3 are that you get kicked out of the university. Whether or not you believe this is fair, or whether or not you believe that getting kicked out of Mac is costing you your entire education, are different issues entirely.

Personally, I believe it is fair because if you're doing that poorly then it's in your best interests to address the issues that are causing you to do poorly before you are allowed to continue, and I do not believe it costs you your entire education because there are ways to recover from it, even if you don't get reinstated right away, or even if you don't get reinstated the following year.

I recall a staff member who received letters you might be sending during a first year orientation. He said he always looked for excuses in the letters. He then said he always asked "why didn't you ask for help earlier?" to the students. I suggest you prepare an answer to this question as it might boost your chances on increasing your mark.

You need 3.0 to stay at mac but I don't know how much to stay in Social Science. If you need to have 4.0 average to stay in Social Science, you need to get it up to 4.0 by the END of this summer.

excuses are the nails that built the house of failure

Actually, you do retain credit for courses which you received over a 4 in event of reinstatement.

From the Registrar's website,

"the Cumulative Average for students who are reinstated is reset to 0.0 on zero units. Credit is retained for courses in which passing grades have been achieved."

What does that mean, 'retain credit'? Like how? If your C.A. is reset to 0 on zero units, then how do you retain credit for it? Just curious. :S

Originally Posted by xo.monica

From the Registrar's website,

"the Cumulative Average for students who are reinstated is reset to 0.0 on zero units. Credit is retained for courses in which passing grades have been achieved."

What does that mean, 'retain credit'? Like how? If your C.A. is reset to 0 on zero units, then how do you retain credit for it? Just curious. :S

Disclaimer: I have no actual knowledge and the following is an unfounded guess.

But maybe they just use it like a pass/fail course? As in you have credits for it and it counts towards your degree but you won't have a grade and it won't affect your GPA?

Originally Posted by xo.monica

From the Registrar's website,

"the Cumulative Average for students who are reinstated is reset to 0.0 on zero units. Credit is retained for courses in which passing grades have been achieved."

What does that mean, 'retain credit'? Like how? If your C.A. is reset to 0 on zero units, then how do you retain credit for it? Just curious. :S

iI think it means that if you failed a course, it will be wiped from your record but if you passed it (ie, got the 3 units of credit) the mark will be retained in your transcript)