I’m guessing that it can depend on what school you go to and how intense it is, but I’m wondering how concerned I should be right now about submitting a paper 20 minutes past the deadline. I’m a freshman at a “selective/ somewhat rigorous” university and I just completed a homework assignment for a class by submitting it through the online portal. The syllabus says that these submissions are due by 11:59 PM Sunday night and anything past then will be accepted, but you will receive 0 credit for the assignment. I submitted the essay at 12:21 AM, am I screwed? **Some things to keep in mind: It’s the second week of classes, we’re still in the add/drop period for the fall semester, and I’ve already noticed that many things stated in the syllabus for other classes aren’t typically the actual rules that the teacher ends up enforcing (For example, a mandatory attendance policy for a gen ed class with no exceptions for unexcused absences without a major penalty on your grade.)
Generally, very rigid. A handful of professors might cut you some slack, but that’s not the norm. If the syllabus explicitly says nothing will be accepted past 11:59 PM, then that will stand. Of course, you can try to talk to the professor and give him or her a good reason as to why you submitted the paper late–usually, computer issues, etc. are not good excuses. I wouldn’t bank on sympathy, though. On the bright side, you have the rest of the semester to make up for it.
Good luck!
You can only know if you contact the prof. We can’t answer for them. They would be well well within their rights to give you a zero, so I wouldn’t squak if they do. The deadline is in the syllabus and you missed it. Dropping the class due one zero seems nuts to me, in case that is why you mentioned the drop/add window.
You need to ask the prof, but I think it is pretty clear you will get a 0.
If I were a prof and said no late papers, I stand by that because that’s what’s fair to everyone.
I put the add/drop note in there because there are still people joining the class, so the professor isn’t exactly enforcing deadlines for in-class assignments right now- everything is pretty much just due when the add/drop deadline ends tomorrow night.
You asked what would happen if you are late and I answered. If you want a different answer, ask the professor.
Don’t be late. Don’t miss deadlines. It will bite you.
I agree.
My daughter, also a college freshman, had an accounting assignment due at midnight last night. She had massive computer issues, and as a result only got to the assignment after dinner. She was pretty stressed.
What I told her was to get to as much as she could-- easiest, quickest problems first-- but to be SURE to hit “SUBMIT” no later than 11:30-- and that’s after either printing or taking screen shots. Doing well was less important than meeting the deadline-- she could always explain the computer issues.
Deadlines tend not to be fluid things, in college or in real life.
In my experience, they’re rigid. I’ve had more than one syllabus state “The deadline for submission is 11:59 p.m. Please plan accordingly. Your computer/network issues are not my issue.”
You have no access to others’ grades, or at least with FERPA, you shouldn’t. So you really should not make such assumptions. But more importantly, you need to worry about your own grade, not others’.
Let us know if you get a zero. I prefer policies where late work is penalized by x% up to the next class period when it then is worth zero, but with online submissions you do need to try to submit earlier than the last minute.
Right. That because technology never fails.
I hate deadlines like that. What the heck is 11:59 pm. That’s the middle of the day for college students. Why not 8:00 am the next morning. What difference does it make when most normal people are sleeping. There are very few rigid deadlines in real life. Most people are reasonable and flexible.
As they say in the Army - 7Ps
It’s better than due at the start of class for some students.
The IRS, for one, does.
His/her class, his/her rules. Don’t want to follow the rules? Then don’t take the class.
Yes if there are exceptional unforeseen circumstances, the student can ask for an extension. But really, the whole notion of “I know that’s what it says in the syllabus,but I didn’t think you were serious” is ridiculous.
^^^^
Actually, the IRS is very flexible. They start with an automatic extension that is easy to file. No excuse necessary. You can also amend your returns. Try amending that term paper. 
And I get the rules thing. But rules should have some sense to them. Not just be “I’m King, so I said so.”
I had a teacher in HS who learned that the hard way. He had a hard, no extensions, turn in rule on a major term paper. First day of class, he emphasized it. Paper was like 50% or more of the grade. For years all was well. Until the one year a young lady came to class to turn in her paper. Turned out her mother died a night or two before and was she afraid to ask for an extension. Reality hit him in the face that day and he felt really bad. He has since updated his “no exceptions” speech.
11:59 promotes healthier sleep habits than 8 am. But the deadline specifics aren’t the issue.
You should be concerned. Deadlines are called deadlines for a reason. Based on the syllabus I would assume your assignment will get a zero. You might want to email the professor, apologize for the late assignment, let him/her know if there was a good reason it was late (do not make a flimsy excuse – better to say nothing if there was no good reason), and ask if there is a chance the assignment might be accepted with any penalty the professor deems appropriate.
Take this as a lesson and get assignments in on time going forward.
But you have to file the extension first, which presumably the student could have also done. Sometimes asking for extensions in advance will elicit a more positive response than making an excuse after the deadline. Either of which I would do before coming to an internet site and asking “am I screwed?”
Do yourself a favor and learn quickly to follow the directions that the professor has put forth. Many times there is no gray area. Another scenario to be careful with is on tests or exams. In my son’s first year he included extra work on a math exam that the professor did not ask for. Although correct, the professor deducted points. The professor said the extra work was indeed correct but he hadn’t asked for it. He learned to follow directions very quickly from that point on.
11:59 pm is just before midnight, not noon.
And it’s a common deadline-- it’s due Sunday night, not Monday morning.
Of course, you certainly COULD hand it in Sunday morning, or Saturday afternoon, if you choose not to wait till the last minute.
Do you want to know why professors take a hard line on deadlines? Because they have to grade all of those papers, and experience has taught me that if you let too many students slide you just get chaos. You get papers coming in at all different times, overlapping with new assignments, and it becomes difficult to keep up with the grading. If the professor said “8 am on the morning of September 10,” someone could just as easily say “Why 8 am when most college students are waking up? Why not 11 am?” and so on and so forth. At some point the time and deadline is always going to feel arbitrary.
The university also has strict deadlines for when professors need to turn in grades, and that can affect whether students are eligible for continuing scholarships, special honors programs, or graduation. So sometimes professors need to grade papers by a certain date so they can get midterm grades in (so you can decide whether or not you want to drop the class) or final grades in (so you can walk!) In one teaching assignment the final grade deadline was the day after the class ended. I couldn’t let students slide on turning in their final papers!
You know what else has hard deadlines? Scholarship applications. Fellowship applications. Summer internship applications. Graduate school applications. I bet a given student wouldn’t want their professor whining about how they have to turn a recommendation letter for them in by 11:59 pm on the day it’s due rather than 8 am the next morning. And the scholarship or fellowship committee isn’t going to allow exceptions for technology failure. (My response to technology failure is…why not get it done a day earlier than it’s supposed to be done so you can leave yourself a buffer for any potential technology fails? Not to mention that although most students are telling the truth, there IS a contingent of students who make up technology fails to give themselves more time to complete the paper.)
There are also certain jobs where there are hard deadlines, like tax deadlines in accounting or filing deadlines in law.
^^^ That’s fine and I agree that’s why professors take a hard line. So just say that. Don’t give me some baloney about teaching us “real world” deadlines. There are very few real world deadlines that are so hard and fast that unforeseen issues can’t be accommodated.
Read the syllabus of each class very carefully so you understand the expectations of the class. Make sure you hand in all assignments well ahead of the due date because you can always face some problems if you wait till last minute.