Petitions to University Exploration

Students who want to drop a class or withdraw from all classes in a term can do so by the term deadlines.

Students seeking to drop class(es) after the deadlines must submit a petition requesting to drop or withdraw to their college office. University Exploration students must submit petitions to Exploration for consideration from our leadership team.

To make a strong case for a petition to be approved, a student should:

  1. describe how circumstances leading to the request to drop or withdraw were unexpected and outside of their control.
  2. describe how circumstances (before the deadlines) prevented them from acting in time.
  3. provide documentation that corroborates the circumstances described in the petition, as well as provide a description of any steps taken to prevent those circumstances from continuing to affect future academic goals, if applicable.

Registration petition form

It is often helpful though not required to meet with a University Exploration advisor to discuss your circumstances before completing Exploration's Registration Petition form.

The petition form needs to be completed in one online session so we recommend that you draft your responses in a separate document before entering them on the online form. You should also have your accompanying documentation ready to upload when you go to fill out the online form.

  1. Does your petition include all classes you took in the relevant term? Yes / No
    • If No… what was different about the classes you took but did not include in this petition? Were these classes not affected by your extenuating circumstances?
  2. Describe the extenuating circumstances that affected the classes on your petition. For a petition to be approvable, students needs to describe extenuating circumstances--generally unforeseeable and outside of student’s control--that prevented them from being successful.

  3. When did you experience these extenuating circumstances? Provide the range of dates when circumstances affected your ability to succeed in the classes included in your petition. Please mention any specific periods of time where the extenuating circumstances you experienced were especially disruptive to your academic success.

  4. How did these extenuating circumstances affect you academically? Please describe how your participation and engagement with the classes included in this petition were impacted.

  5. Students are expected to make use of the university's drop deadline if circumstances arise prior to the drop deadline. Did these extenuating circumstances begin before the final drop deadline? Yes / No
    • If Yes… what prevented you from dropping the course(s) prior to the final drop deadline?

  6. Are these circumstances likely to recur? Why or why not? What is your plan and what resources will you incorporate? Petitions cannot be repeated in future terms citing the same circumstances so we do not want to set you up for a situation in which you will struggle to reach your academic goals again.

  7. Will the experience of the petition term affect your academic planning going forward? For example, will you plan to take a break from school, reduce your course load, change the type of classes you are taking or make any other adjustments?

  8. What are your current plans with regards to a major?

Go to University Exploration's Registration Petition form.

(Note: this form is only for use by current University Exploration - Columbus students and former students whose most recent enrolled term was with University Exploration - Columbus.)