Cornell has this strange policy for scheduling final exams where they apparently wait until classes start and then look at everyone’s schedule and then come up with a final exam schedule: " Per university faculty policy, the final exam schedule is to be created to minimize the number of students who have more than two exams in one twenty-four hour period. "
My son has ended up with three consecutive exams: Thursday 7pm, Friday 9am, Friday 2pm. These are for fairly standard first semester engineering classes, so he’s probably not the only freshman engineer with this problem. But anyway… how willing are faculty to work with students with an exam schedule like this? Ideally, he could get the Friday 9am exam moved to some other day. Are the professors generally nice enough to do this?
He should contact his professor to request a make-up date. One caution: the make-up date could end up being day 7 or day 8, but better than his current schedule.
Thanks, CT1417. In your experience, are professors fairly nice about this sort of thing?
Tiggy and Kunjiboy, I assume you are both having a bad day, because your responses are not really answers to my question - they are simply (unsympathetic) comments on the situation. But thanks for trying, anyway.
OP, no, not having a bad day and not trying to be unsympathetic. Just keeping it real. My D goes to Cornell and sometimes exam schedules aren’t ideal. Obviously Cornell has to schedule exams for 14,000 students so it stands to reason that not everyone is going to get a great exam schedule. It is what it is and so they learn to deal with it. These are smart kids who just suck it up and endure. You should just let it go. Your son is a big boy now. This isn’t high school. This isn’t the only time in his college career at Cornell that there are going to be conflicts with prelims and finals. If your son wants to try to reschedule then it’s up to him and according to Cornell, faculty are urged to work with their students to resolve conflicts but are not required to do so.
I don’t think that sounds out of the ordinary for finals. I agree with TiggyB62. Freshmen classes are often large, and I’m not sure most professors would be willing to offer a different exam time for every student who feels inconvenienced.I suspect that having final exams close together is just part of the deal. I would probably only request a change if there was an actual overlap or other extenuating circumstances. This is Cornell. …people work hard (and play hard).
@tamara6 – I do not know the answer to your question and in typical Cornell fashion, the response probably varies massively across colleges and even within a school.
Based on the link I posted, I think your son’s request will not be seen as unreasonable, and he should approach the professor now.
Cornell strikes me (at a distance) as a kinder, gentler Cornell than in my day. They have done away with the introductory ‘look to your right, look to your left, one of these students will not be here to graduate with you’ (or something to that effect). Good luck to him!
"Per university faculty policy, the final exam schedule is to be created to minimize the number of students who have more than two exams in one twenty-four hour period.
More than two exams in twenty-four hours is defined as one of the following:
More than two exams in one day (9:00 a.m., 2:00 p.m., and 7:00 p.m.)
An evening exam followed by morning and afternoon exams (7:00 p.m., 9:00 a.m., and 2:00 p.m.)
Afternoon and evening exams followed by a morning exam (2:00 p.m., 7:00 p.m., and 9:00 a.m.)
In the event that a student has more than 2 exams in 24 hours, members of the faculty are urged to grant student requests for a make-up examination, particularly if their course is the largest involved. See also the Disability Accommodation Procedure for Students page.
In addition to minimizing the number of students who have more than two exams in one twenty-four hour period, the Office of the University Registrar makes every effort to minimize the number of students who have back-to-back exams.
Back to back exams occur when a student has two exams in consecutive exam periods in one day:
A 9:00 a.m. exam followed by a 2:00 p.m. exam
A 2:00 p.m. exam followed by a 7:00 p.m. exam"
I think most Cornell professors are quite reasonable and nice. Both of my kids have gotten sick while at Cornell and their professors were very accommodating. When they had questions about problem sets, their professors were very responsive. I remember one incidence when the professor emailed D1 while he was running to catch his flight. He told D1 when he would land if she had any additional questions.
The professors probably would accommodate OP’s son, but I wonder if it would be easier if he were to just go with it and have it over and done with.
OP - if your son is new at Cornell, especially as an engineering student, I would strongly suggest for him to go to as many office hours as possible if he needs help with problem sets and before each prelim. My kids were surprised how few students did that.