Late Course Drops and Retroactive Withdrawals

1. When a student contacts you to discuss a potential late drop or retroactive withdrawal, you will need to determine if their situation warrants consideration under the outlined guidelines
   1. Consideration will not be given to circumstances that do not meet the guideline criteria
   2. Students should be advised that their eligibility for OSAP (or other loans and bursaries they are currently receiving) may be reassessed as a result of their appeal removing a course from their academic record. Once removed, courses cannot be reinstated to the academic record. Students may contact Student Financial Assistance for further details via the ServiceHub
2. The program chair/director should review the request from the student along with the documented evidence and consider if it falls under the scope of a late drop/retroactive withdrawal or if the appeal should be made through another route (e.g. course management policy appeal, Senate appeal, etc.)
3. Recommend, Defer, or Deny the request:
   1. Recommend: If the situation is eligible and the chair/director supports the request, they must sign the appropriate section on the form submitted by the student and return the form along with the supporting documentation electronically as a single package to the Registrar's Office at roas@torontomu.ca. Please attach a single student submission per email and include the student’s TMU Student Number and last name in the email subject line. 
      
      Note: only departmental staff may submit requests to this mailbox for consideration by the committee, not students
   2. Defer: If the chair/director is undecided, they may use their discretion to defer the decision to the University Registrar and return the signed form and supporting documentation electronically as a single package to the Registrar's Office
   3. Deny: If the chair/director decides not to recommend late drop or retroactive withdrawal, they (or their designate) must communicate this to the student via email to their TMU account. The form and supporting documentation should be retained in the student’s academic program department file. Unsupported or incomplete requests do not need to be forwarded to the Registrar’s Office
4. The Office of the Registrar will review the recommendation for consistency in application across the university. To protect the integrity of the university and its academic records, the student's request form and the supporting documentation will be added to the student’s permanent record
   

The documents a student provides along with their request must give clear evidence that a debilitation or hardship outside of their control (eg. personal, circumstantial, physical, psychological) existed during the course in question. This information is requested to understand that these limitations were the cause of course deadlines being missed.

Accepted Documentation

• Letters from a medical doctor (M.D.) confirming dates of onset of illness, date of diagnosis, or recovery period. 
  • A TMU Student Health Certificate (external link, opens in new window)  will be required when medical circumstances form a factor.
  • A doctor’s note on prescription paper is not sufficient evidence
• Airplane tickets (for example, e-tickets) with a passport stamp confirming the date of the student's departure and arrival. This can be used in the event of sudden departure to attend to a family death or other family emergency outside the country
• A certified death certificate, published obituary notice, or original note from a funeral home citing the student's relationship to the deceased
• Confirmation that medical or extenuating circumstances were present between the end of the course in question and the time of submission of the late drop/retroactive withdrawal request
  • Evidence must confirm that the extenuating circumstances impacted the student to the point where they could not be reasonably expected to attend to academic matters in that time period on the basis of compassionate grounds

Decisions are communicated to the student through their TMU email account. Generally, students can expect to receive a reply within 30 working days.

The following are examples of reasons why a request for a late course drop or retroactive withdrawal may be denied:

• Not knowing or forgetting published deadlines and procedures
• Requests to remove courses after a degree has been conferred
• Requests to remove courses with low grades to improve grade point averages (GPA)
• Requests to remove courses with low grades due to course management and in-course issues (for example, group work issues). Instead, review Policy 166: Course Management and Senate Appeals for more information regarding applicable resolutions or appeals
• The reason outlined in the supporting documentation is not applicable to the drop deadline date (i.e. the timeline covered in the documentation is before or after the drop deadline or outside of the term)
• Requests to remove only one course or selected courses in a term, unless there is clear documentation and rationale for why the situation impacted some courses but not all courses in the same term
• Requests for fee refunds
• Requests for late drops and retroactive withdrawals that have already been considered through grade and academic standing appeals at the department, faculty or Senate level. Please refer to the Senate Appeals page for detailed information on the grade and academic standing appeal process
• Requests for retroactive withdrawals for courses for which there is an outstanding investigation of academic misconduct, finding of academic misconduct, and/or have already been considered as part of academic misconduct appeals at the Academic Integrity Council or Senate level

Note: As an instructor or faculty member, you may wish to consider assigning an INC grade where circumstances do not warrant a late drop.

• Calendar
• Chang School of Continuing Education (opens in new window) 
• Senate Policy 170(a), #166, #167, #168