Academic Petitions

Late Withdrawal: A Step-by-Step Guide

If you faced a challenge that made completing your classes difficult or impossible, don’t panic. UNC Charlotte has a process called an Academic Petition for Late Withdrawal to help students in your exact situation.

This process is only for extinuating cirumstances – meaning events outside your control that happened during the semester.

What Potentially Qualifies ✅

  • Medical: Physical or mental health challenges, including those related to diagnosed disabilities with an impact on education.
  • Family Emergency: Death in the family or other family crisis.
  • Hardship: Housing insecurity, fire, transportation issues, or financial crisis.

What Potentially Does NOT Qualify ❌

  • Grades: Doing poorly in a class or fear of failing in and of itself is not a qualifying situation.
  • Deadlines: Simply missing the standard withdrawal date.
  • Major: Changing your mind about your major.

Timeline

You have one calendar year from the end of the semester to submit your petition. If approved, your grade will change to a “WE” (Withdrawal with Extenuating Circumstance). WEs do not impact your GPA, but they do count as “attempted hours” for financial aid eligibility.

4-Step Process

Step 1: Draft Your Statement

Prepare a clear narrative that explains three things:

  1. What happened? (the extenuating circumstance)
  2. How specifically did the circumstance impact your classes?
  3. What have you done and what do you plan to do in the future to address the problem?

*If you are connected to the Office of Disability Services, that is helpful information to include in your statement. This could include the date your accommodations became effective if that impacted the situation you are describing.

Step 2: Gather Your Evidence

You must provide third-party documentation of the circumstance you are describing. You have a lot of options here and this is a good time to think expansively about how the challenge you have faced impacted different facets of your life. Third-party evidence could look like:

  • Documentation from a health care provider outlining a medical or mental health situation whether a one time event or an ongoing issue.
  • Legal documents like death certificates, court records, or crash reports.
  • A letter from an instructor, advisor, or other academic professional providing verification of ongoing conversations about how a challenge is impacting academics.
  • A letter from a supervisor, landlord, or other professional who has contemporary knowledge of the circumstance.
  • A copy of your accommodations letter from the Office of Disability Services if you are registered with that campus resource.

Regardless of the situation or the evidence you plan to provide, we strongly recommend you reach out to both your assigned Academic Advisor and the instructors of the courses you are petitioning to withdraw from prior to submitting your petition. The Academic Petition will automatically route to these individuals to gather their recommendation for the outcome of the petition and to collect any additional information they have. Giving them advance notice of the petition allows them to ask questions and gather information of their own. Whether they respond to your outreach or not, they’ve at least heard about the petition before it comes to them in the portal.

Step 3: Submit the Academic Petition

  • Log into my.charlotte.edu
  • Go to Student Records, then select Academic Petition.
  • Select, “Start a New Petition” and choose “Late Withdrawal” as your petition type.
    • Note: If you self-withdrew from a course and are petitioning to change a “W” to a “WE”, select “General – Course Related” instead.
  • Enter your drafted statement and upload the evidence you collected.

Step 4: Check Your Email

Your Academic Petition will move through several layers of approval depending on your courses and declared major. You will be notified by email when a final decision is made.

Still need help drafting your petition?

We recommend you review all the steps on this website first to ensure you have your statement and documentation started. If you have followed steps 1 & 2 above, and would like help fine-tuning your written statement or brainstorming ideas for additional evidence, you can schedule a consultation by emailing successful@charlotte.edu with your questions and availability to meet.

If you would like to talk through your statement and evidence with your Office of Disability Services accommodations coordinator, please reach out directly to them.