Mitigating Circumstances and Appeals

Resources

Academic Appeals | Academic Support (ox.ac.uk) 

Mitigating circumstances process updated for COVID-19 | University of Oxford 

Mitigating circumstances for late submissions | Academic Support (ox.ac.uk) 

Mitigating circumstance notices to examiners | Academic Support (ox.ac.uk) 

Speaking to your College or Department as soon as possible

Students often ask us about what to do if their exams or assessments were affected by circumstances in life which mean that they are/were not able to perform to the best of their ability and are worried this will affect their results.

The best thing you can do if you feel that something has happened in your life or your mental or physical health is preventing you from doing your best academic work is speak to us or your College/Department as soon as possible. Sometimes the first step in asking for support is the hardest one to take, but there is help available and the mitigating circumstances process is there to let the right people know about your situation. Making a mitigating circumstances application is not a guarantee that the Examiners will adjust your marks, but they will have all the information about your situation when they are assessing you. It is also possible to make a retrospective or late application for mitigating circumstances. If you want to work out if your situation means you might be eligible to make a mitigating circumstances application Email Us.

How we can help

SU Advice can offer you a Talk It Through appointment if you are not sure about what to do. We can offer you an SU Advice appointment if you need support through the process of making a mitigating circumstances application. We can read and comment on draft statements for the application form and we can offer support and suggestions around collecting supporting evidence if applicable. An academic appeal has specific grounds of appeal. An application will only be considered if your situation fits one of the grounds, is on time, and you have received your result. Read more about academic appeals.

Academic Appeals | Academic Support (ox.ac.uk) 

A mitigating circumstances application is asking for consideration of the circumstances you were in at the time of your revision, assessment, or examination. Your application should be acknowledged and you should be told when to expect the outcome.

If the Examiners decide not to take your circumstances into account and your mitigating circumstances application is unsuccessful, you could Email Us and ask for an appointment to discuss your situation. All students’ situations are different and we will need to go through the specifics of your situation to be able to offer options for action. The Examiners have a set of decision options available to them for Mitigating Circumstance applications and they are only able to apply one of these options. They can't make a decision based on any other options or information.