Withdrawing from a course or program

You must meet certain requirements for your application to be considered. These requirements are listed as ‘threshold criteria’ in section 3.1 of the Removal of Courses Due to Special Circumstances Procedure. If you do not meet all of the following threshold criteria your application will not be considered, even if you have special circumstances.

1. You must have been enrolled in the course after census date

• You meet this criterion if you were enrolled in the course after the census date. Note, if you dropped your enrolment after census date, you still meet this criterion.
• You do not meet this criterion if you dropped your course before census date or the University cancelled your enrolment.

2. You must not have passed the course

• You meet this criterion if you don’t have a grade in the course, or you have a grade of X, 1, 2, 3, 3S, 3S-, 3S3, N, NSN, NS-, IP, W, K, or INC.
• You do not meet this criterion if you have a grade of 4, 5, 6, 7, RW or G.

3. You must submit your request within the required timeframe

• Your application must be submitted within 12 months of the date that you dropped the course, or a final grade was published.
• Late requests will only be accepted if you can demonstrate that it was not possible for you to apply on-time due to circumstances beyond your control, and that you applied as soon as these circumstances were resolved.
  • Late applications must be emailed to enrolments@uq.edu.au.
    • In your late application, include your course details (e.g. course code, title, semester of enrolment) and your current grade.
    • Provide your reasons and supporting evidence for not applying on-time, and information to further establish your special circumstances, as listed below.

If you meet the threshold criteria, the next step is to outline your special circumstances and provide supporting evidence. To do this successfully, you must address the following conditions:

1. You must demonstrate that you had special circumstances 

Special circumstances can include, but are not limited to:

• Medical reasons – for example, a medical condition that changed after census date to such an extent that you were unable to continue studying.
• Family or personal reasons – for example, death or severe medical problems within your family, or unforeseen family financial difficulties that presented or worsened after the census date and this circumstance made it unreasonable to continue studying.
  • Example: A family member is diagnosed with a severe medical condition after the census date, and you needed to provide full-time care for an extended period of time.
• Employment related reasons – for example, your employment status or arrangements have changed after the census date, and you are unable to continue your studies.

Please note, the following examples are not considered special circumstances:

• being unaware of student services or processes to request reasonable adjustments such as assessment due date extensions and deferred or supplementary examinations
• not understanding census dates or cancellation procedures
• not understanding your obligations when accessing Commonwealth Assistance
• forgetting you are enrolled or forgetting to drop your courses by census date
• an inability to repay your HELP debt
• choosing to increase hours of work
• deciding to reduce your study load due to poor academic performance
• reasonable or expected levels of stress or anxiety associated with study
• misreading an assignment due date or examination schedule.

2. You must demonstrate that the circumstances were beyond your control

Circumstances are beyond your control if a situation occurs that a reasonable person would consider is not due to your action or inaction, either direct or indirect, and for which you are not responsible. This situation must be unusual, uncommon, or abnormal.

3. You must demonstrate that the circumstances did not make their full impact until on or after the census date

When addressing this requirement, your statement and your supporting documentation must:

• Outline when your circumstances arose and/or worsened.
  • For example, rather than saying you had an accident after census date, specify the date on which you had the accident and the dates that you experienced a functional impact. Your supporting documentation must also specify these dates.
• Outline the impact(s) of the circumstances, i.e.
  • The functional impacts of your condition could be physical, mental, cognitive, sensory and/ or behavioural. You should also specify whether you were totally or partially incapacitated and how these impacts effected your ability to participate in or complete course requirements.
    • For example, an injury may have multiple physical impacts. It may affect your mobility, your ability to sit for long periods or cause pain that requires management with strong medication. These functional impacts would affect your studies in different ways too. Limited mobility may mean you are unable to complete lab-based practicals and medication may cause drowsiness that would make it unsafe for you to work in a lab environment.

4. You must demonstrate that the circumstances made it impossible for you to complete the course

This requirement is about demonstrating that your circumstances made it impossible to complete the course, rather than simply making it difficult or challenging.

In many cases it is possible to complete a course with the assistance of academic adjustments such as extensions to progressive assessment, deferred examinations, and supplementary examinations. Other examples are rescheduling compulsory lab classes and extending the duration of a placement. Therefore, you need to be able to demonstrate that it was not possible to complete the course with the available adjustments.

• Example 1: The assessment for a course is based on observations and data collected during a field trip and you are unable to attend the field trip. If, the course co-ordinator can provide a data set for you to analyse and write up, you should be able to complete the assessment tasks. Therefore, your inability to do the fieldwork does not make it impracticable to complete the course.
• Example 2: You are unable to attend your final examination due to circumstances beyond your control. If you don’t apply for a deferred examination, your inability to attend the final examination has not made it impracticable to complete the course.
• Example 3: You are hospitalised for four weeks and are undertaking a course which has a group project as the primary assessment item. In this case, you may be unable to get an extension as assessment is based on the semester long group project. In this case, your circumstances make it impracticable to complete the course.
• Example 4: You are undertaking a clinical placement and are unable to attend two weeks of the five week placement due to special circumstances. If the placement cannot be extended or an alternative placement found, your circumstances make it impossible to complete the course.