Appeals

Undergraduate Appeals

Final-year undergraduate students

Under certain defined circumstances final-year undergraduate students may appeal against the award of a particular degree class (including Pass degree), or if they have not been awarded a qualification (with no further right of resit). You are required to complete a form if you wish to appeal. This form, which includes the conditions relating to appeals and contact details for seeking advice on making an appeal, is available via the "Academic Appeal Form" link to the right of this page. Appeals from final-year students against degree classification are administered by the Student Complaints and Academic Casework Team in the Academic Registrar’s Office (please see the appeal form for further details and contacts).

Academic Appeal Form Doctoral College Mitigating Circumstances Regulation 42 UG Support PGT Support

First-year and Intermediate-year undergraduate students

First-year and intermediate-year undergraduate students have the right to appeal only against a decision that they be required to withdraw from their course of study, and then only if they are in possession of relevant evidence which was not available to the Board of Examiners when its decision was reached and can provide evidence of good reason for not having made the Board of Examiners aware of this evidence previously. You are required to complete a form if you wish to appeal. This form, which includes contact details for advice on appeal procedures, is available via the "Academic Appeal Form" link to the right of this page. Appeals by first- and intermediate-year students are administered by the Student Complaints and Academic Casework Team in the Academic Registrar’s Office (please see the appeal form for further details and contacts).

Postgraduate Taught Appeals

Under certain defined circumstances taught postgraduate students may appeal if it is decided that your performance merits the award of a lower qualification than the one for which you were registered, or does not merit the award of a qualification at all (with no further right of resit). Under certain defined circumstances students entering the University from the start of 2024/25 academic year may also appeal against the award of a particular degree classification. Regulation 42 sets out the procedure to be followed for taught postgraduate courses and is accessible via "Academic Appeal Form" link to the right of this page.

Students should note that there is no right of appeal against the requirement to resubmit work or resit examinations.

Appeals relating to Taught Postgraduate degrees will be administered by the Student Complaints and Academic Casework Team in the Academic Registrar's Office (please see the appeal form for further details and contacts).

Postgraduate Research Appeals

Appeals relating to Postgraduate Research degrees are administered by the Doctoral College (see Warwick Doctoral College).

Permissible grounds of appeal

Undergraduate students

Please note that the appeal process is not an open-ended process enabling appeal on the basis of any set of circumstances. Appeals may only be made on the specific and limited grounds set out in Regulation 42. The following are the permissible grounds of appeal under Regulation 42:

(a) The student is in possession of evidence relevant to their assessment performance which was not available to the Board of Examiners when their decision was reached. The student must provide evidence of good reason for not having made the Board of Examiners aware of this evidence prior to the assessment decision;

(b) There is evidence of a procedural irregularity in the conduct of the examination process;

(c) There is evidence of prejudice or bias on the part of one or more of the examiners.

Please note that academic appeals that do not meet the above permissible grounds for appeal and/or are not evidenced in accordance with the University’s requirements for acceptable forms of mitigating evidence (see “Evidence relevant to assessment performance” under “Permissible grounds of appeal – further guidance” above) will not be accepted into the Regulation 42 process (as set out in Section 3.7 of Regulation 42).

Postgraduate taught students

(a) The student is in possession of evidence relevant to their examination performance which was not available to the Board of Examiners when their decision was reached. The student must provide evidence of good reason for not having made the Board of Examiners aware of this evidence prior to the assessment decision;

(b) There is evidence of procedural irregularity in the examination process; or

(c) There is evidence of prejudice or bias on the part of one or more of the examiners.

(d) There is evidence of inadequacy of supervisory or other arrangements during the student’s enrolment at the University. In this instance the student is required to explain why a complaint under the Student Complaints Resolution Procedure was not made at an earlier stage.

Important information for all students

*No decisions of Boards of Examiners other than those noted above are open to appeal*. Please note that the appeal procedure may not be used to challenge individual module results (unless there is relevant evidence of procedural irregularity), nor to challenge examiners’ academic judgement, nor to dispute marks awarded in individual modules or pieces of work, nor to request a “re-mark”.

The Regulation 42 appeal process cannot be used to dispute the content of academic feedback given; any concerns about feedback given should be referred to the staff member responsible for the feedback or to your personal tutor.

Permissible grounds of appeal - further guidance

Evidence relevant to assessment performance

Regarding the first ground of appeal, mitigating evidence must be in accord with the University’s regulations regarding mitigating circumstances and be genuinely new. Please note the appeal process is not an opportunity to re-present mitigating circumstances already disclosed to a Board of Examiners and an examination outcome lower than that expected or hoped for does not of itself constitute grounds for assuming that mitigating evidence already submitted cannot have been properly taken into account by the examiners.

Where genuinely new and relevant mitigating evidence has become available, a student must be able to present an acceptable reason for not having disclosed it to the Board of Examiners before the Board took the decision which is being appealed (for example, if there were acute adverse circumstances, for which there is evidence, which made it demonstrably impossible to submit the evidence to the Board before the date of its meeting).

Please note that claims of reluctance or embarrassment about disclosing information cannot be accepted as “good reason” for not previously disclosing mitigating circumstances. If students have circumstances that they feel have adversely affected their exam performance to a significant extent and which they wish the examiners to take account of, they must follow the established procedures for notifying mitigating evidence before the relevant Board of Examiners meets, except where this has demonstrably not been possible. Students should not hold such information in reserve with the intention of bringing it forward via the appeal process should they not obtain a particular degree result or other desired examination outcome.

Important - please note that all claims of mitigating circumstances should normally be supported by appropriate independent documentary evidence (for example, from a doctor, counsellor or personal tutor). The information at Mitigating Circumstances gives further guidance on appropriate documentary evidence. Please note it is the student’s responsibility to obtain such evidence and submit it with their appeal. Please if possible incorporate all items of supporting evidence in a single document (e.g. a Word document or a PDF) and submit this with your appeal form. Within your supporting evidence submission, please identify each item clearly and indicate its relevance to your statement in your appeal form. Please also ensure that any supporting evidence you submit is clear and fully legible.

Procedural irregularity

Regarding ground (b) (“evidence of a procedural irregularity in the conduct of the examination process”), appeals are considered within the context of the University’s normal academic regulations. Following from this, “a procedural irregularity in the conduct of the examination process” is only a valid ground for appeal where there is clear evidence that an assessment decision has failed to follow the University’s normal assessment regulations, or where there has been a clear error (for example, an arithmetical error in calculating a module mark). The appeal process does not allow for the University’s normal academic regulations to be disregarded or amended in particular cases. The University’s regulations have been determined via the University’s normal governance processes, and must be applied consistently in order to be fair to all candidates, therefore simply regarding a particular regulation unfair or disadvantageous in an individual case cannot constitute a basis for appeal.

Under ground (b), the “examination process” relates specifically to assessment issues within the current academic year, and this ground of appeal may not be used to revisit or pursue issues that were dealt with in previous academic years or under different University processes or provisions, or which are not part of the examination process.

Evidence of bias or prejudice

Alleging bias or prejudice on the part of examiners (ground (c)) is of course quite a significant allegation to make and, as the regulation indicates, a student must be able to provide acceptable evidence to substantiate a claim if they wish to appeal on this ground. Please note that statements of subjective impressions are not sufficient evidence in this regard.

Evidence of inadequacy of supervisory or other arrangements [ Postgraduate Taught Students only]

This ground of appeal (ground (d)) is intended to relate to the supervision of Masters’ degree dissertations in the case of Taught Postgraduate students.

Academic decision making

Students are asked to note that, constitutionally, only Boards of Examiners may make or amend assessment decisions regarding academic progress or the award of qualifications. Appeal Review Panels and Appeal Committees established under Regulation 42 do not make or amend assessment decisions themselves, their role being only to determine whether or not there are grounds for appeal which the relevant Board of Examiners should be asked to consider.

Appeal submission deadline

Under Regulation 42, appeals (with any appropriate supporting evidence) must be submitted in accordance with the instructions on the appeal form within ten University Working Days of the date of the notification to the student of the assessment decision which is being appealed (notification will be whatever means the University shall adopt in the academic year concerned).

The appeal process is typically to be completed (i.e. the final outcome notified to the student) within eighty University Working Days. The University will endeavour to determine appeals as quickly as possible, but students are asked to understand that the appeal process can take a while, especially where Boards of Examiners may have to be reconvened to consider an appeal.

All communication with students about appeals will be to their University email address and/or their personal email address as specified by them on their appeal form.

Important - please note, the University is unable to accept late appeals.

Further information

The appeal form provides further guidance on sources of advice for students considering making an appeal.

Students are encouraged to talk to their home department (for example, with a Personal Tutor, Supervisor, or other appropriate member of staff) before submitting an appeal since in some cases Boards of Examiners may be able to resolve issues directly without the need for a formal appeal submission under Regulation 42.