Illness during a course or exam
Missed assignments
If, due to illness, you have missed assignments or mid-term examinations, contact your professor and try to make alternative arrangements. At the start of the term, you were provided with a course outline for each of your courses which should be available to you on myCourses. The course outline provides you with the method of assessment for the course, information on how to contact your course instructor as well as information on late submissions and/or acceptable circumstances for extensions.You should be prepared to provide medical documentation if you are requesting special accommodations. Examinations for multi-term ("D1/D2" courses) courses during the Fall semester final examination period in December are treated as mid-terms and alternative arrangements must be made with the professor.
If you have fallen too far behind to catch up in a course, you should meet with an advisor at Arts OASIS to discuss your options. Depending on your situation, you may be able to request a late course withdrawal, an exam deferral or an extension on your coursework. An advisor can help you go through all the possibilities, find the best solution based on your circumstances and figure out what the steps involved would be. As a BA student, all requests for late course withdrawals and deferred exams will be handled by Service Point.
To meet with an Advisor, please refer to our Contact Page to book an appointment.
Missed final exam
If you have missed a final examination (one that is on the Final Exam Schedule and held during the final exam period), you can request permission from Service Point to write a deferred exam. Medical documentation may be required to support your request. The medical note must cover the date of the missed examination and indicate the nature and duration of the illness. You can find details on the deferred exam policy here.
Illness during a final exam
It is assumed that upon entering the exam room or accessing your online exam, it is your intent to complete the exam. It is your personal responsibility to judge your own state of health before entering the exam room or accessing your online exam to assess whether you are able to write the exam.
At the start of all final exams, students are informed of the following: "A reminder that once you begin your exam, you will not be eligible to apply for a deferred exam, except in cases of unforeseeable medical emergencies. If you are not healthy enough to write your exam in its entirety, the time to leave is now."
Accordingly, if you attend your exam or access your online exam, you are no longer eligible to defer it, barring exceptional cases of severe unforeseeable medical emergencies. In most cases, once you have started a final exam, no accommodations for an alternate exam will be provided. Note that requests based on minor illnesses (e.g. nausea, headache, dizziness, etc.) will not be approved.
If you become ill during a final examination:
- Tell the invigilator that you are ill and be sure that an Incident Report is completed.
- You must visit McGill Health Services or another clinic/doctor right away to get medical documentation regarding your illness.
- You must submit your medical note to Service Point within one week after the examination and apply for a deferred examination.
- Approval of your request is extremely unlikely, except where there is strong documentation of an extreme and unforeseen medical emergency.
If you complete the examination normally or simply walk out of the examination without notifying anyone of your situation, the grade you receive will remain on your record and cannot be changed. Again, you should not begin an exam if you are too ill to complete it. Refer to the official Exam Regulations, under "Illness during examinations", and to the Arts OASIS page pertaining to final exams.