so last semester I took a 1 credit class, that is pass/fail. i had to make up two absences and turn it in by the deadline to pass the course into her mailbox before the end of the semester, which I did. I see my grade and it’s a fail, when it should be pass. so i ask my teacher and she said that she never got it so she’ll look into it. Now, this isn’t my fault that it was lost when I turned it in on time. She also never told us to confirm with her that we turned it in just to leave it in her mailbox. What can I do since it’s not my fault for this grade? It’s really bringing down my gpa.
Something similar happened to me once. Turned out the same mailbox was used by multiple courses (which made no sense at all), so an assignment I turned in was accidently taken by the grader of the other course. It was all resolved without me. I went to class, professor handed back assignments, told me he had just found out that mine was taken by the wrong person and he’d get it to me next class. But in this case, check out if the mailbox was used by multiple classes and if so ask the professor to contact the professor of the other class to see if that’s what happened.
You have already done everything you can do. A professor with even a few years’ experience knows the many ways that essays can get lost. (The most common is one paper getting stuck on another paper’s paperclip.) Now that your professor knows to look, she will probably find it if it is still there.
Don’t rely on professors to tell you to confirm whether they have received your work. If there is a chance they did not, politely check.
she hasn’t responded back yet about what she found out, should i ask her again?
Yes, you should ask. Also if you can document that the file was created back before the deadline, that will help your case. And in the future, never just assume that anyone received anything!
Do you have a copy of the assigment per chance? Does it have a timestamp on it?
Because the ol’ “I put the assignment in your mailbox but now it is gone” trick has been used before on professors.
If you have any other evidence that would be good.
File an appeal, wait for it to get automatically rejected and then appeal the rejection. At most school’s it’s called a general petition. My brother went through this and it TAKES FOREVER.
Keep the petition short and to the point and only ever complain about one thing and keep in mind it will be automatically rejected and you’ll have to appeal.
entranceexamguy, filing a petition for a grade change? I think i do have copy of it on my computer, would that be enough? i really don’t think it’s fair when i turned it in. this F has caused a significant drop in my term gpa. she never emailed me at the end of the semester telling me that i would fail or didn’t get it.
@WasatchWriter wrote “A professor with even a few years’ experience knows the many ways that essays can get lost. (The most common is one paper getting stuck on another paper’s paperclip.)”
I’m a professor with a few years’ experience and I also know, unfortunately, that one of the many ways essays can get lost is for them never to have been turned in, despite the student’s protestations to the contrary. It’s rare, happily, and I don’t suggest that that’s what happened here, but it does happen. As a result, if you don’t have something timestamped, you may be out of luck.
(This is why I have my students turn everything in through our university’s course management system. I loathe the interface, but students get a receipt. It’s a huge help for both sides of the process.)