Extenuating Circumstances rarely occur and are deemed to be out of your control if they are:

• Unforeseeable - you would not have prior knowledge of the event (e.g. you cannot foresee that you will be involved in a car accident or have a medical emergency) 
• Unpreventable – you could not reasonably do anything in your power to prevent such an event (e.g. you cannot reasonably prevent a burst appendix) 

Examples of the type of circumstances that might qualify for Extenuating Circumstances are detailed here.

Please check 

• The circumstances guide on these webpages available here.
• The Student Guide to Extenuating Circumstances 2023/24. The relevant information is in Part 2 of the document.

You should complete and submit an EC form as soon as possible after the assessment or submission date for the assessment affected by your circumstances. It is important that you do not apply in advance so the Committee can consider your application on actual facts rather than speculation on how a circumstance may affect you. (The only exception to this is for PGT students that are applying to defer.)

For UG and PGT students

Leaving your application to the last minute close to the deadline may limit the available options the Committee and your Department Assessment Board can put in place to take into consideration your circumstances.

Applications cannot be accepted after the relevant deadline listed on the Extenuating Circumstances pages of the Student Intranet – if your deadline is not showing please contact your School or email ECs@rhul.ac.uk.

On the last page of your application form (before you click the submit button) you will be given an option to receive a copy of your application by email.  We recommend that you select this option.

Once you have submitted your application you will get a message on screen confirming that you have submitted your application - at this point there will be a further opportunity to print or download a PDF copy of your application.

Within five working days of submitting your application form you will receive an email from the ECs Team confirming they have received your application number and providing you with an application reference number which you should include in any further correspondence you have with the team about your application. 

Remember; for Standard UG and PGT courses there will be a termly EC deadline.It is important that you check when the deadline is to apply for ECs. If you do miss the deadline, please contact the EC Team on ECs@rhul.ac.uk as soon as possible, who will be able to advise you.

Applications cannot be accepted after the relevant deadline listed on the Extenuating Circumstances pages of the Student Intranet – if your deadline is not showing please contact your School or email ECs@rhul.ac.uk.

Your application will be received by the Extenuating Circumstances (ECs) team, who will triage your application to check that you have completed the form correctly and that your circumstances are applicable.

Your application will then be presented to the Extenuating Circumstances Committee, who meet each term. The Committee will assess your application, if you have provided sufficient suitable evidence, if your circumstances meet the criteria of an Extenuating Circumstance, and how much your circumstances are likely to have affected your studies. The Committee decides whether or not to accept or reject applications and identifies the possible mitigating outcomes available under the university regulations.

Accepted applications are passed to your Department Assessment Board, who then decide which of the possible mitigating outcomes is most appropriate in your case depending on your performance in the assessment compared to your performance across your other assessments. Department Assessment Boards meet at the end of each academic year to review and agree grades, progression, awards and classifications - this is when the final decision regarding your Extenuating Circumstance will be made.

For students on a Postgraduate Taught programme, who have experienced extenuating circumstances that have prevented you from completing a module/assessment, you may ask to defer that module to the next available opportunity. PGT students applying to defer may apply in advance of their assessment date or submission deadline. Full details about when and how to apply are available here.

You will need to provide evidence to support your application. This can take many forms and guidance on suitable evidence is available here.

Evidence needs to be provided at the time you make your application. If you do not yet have the evidence required you should wait to make your application until you have all the necessary documentation. If this is close to the EC deadline for your cohort you should contact the ECs Team for advice as a matter of urgency.

The EC Committee is unable to retrieve or access evidence that you have provided to other departments in the College. Any evidence you wish to provide must be uploaded together with your form. 

Data protection laws in the UK mean that your personal data, including information about circumstances you experience, cannot routinely be shared across departments - you should assume that the EC Committee will have no prior knowledge of your situation and provide adequate detail and evidence accordingly. 

If you are engaging with a Wellbeing Department team at the university for reasons relating to the circumstances for which you are applying for ECs you should indicate this clearly on your application form when asked to do so. The EC team will request a confirmation of this engagement, the dates and the presenting circumstances  so you do not need to provide further evidence of your engagement with them.  

This information will only be able to evidence your engagement with our wellbeing services and it is very important to remember that this information alone does not guarantee that your application will be accepted. You must still provide any further evidence you have related to the circumstances (including any evidence from external professionals, eg medical letters) and do not rely solely on a statement of engagement as your only evidence.

Registration with the D&N team does not on its own qualify you for Extenuating Circumstances. You would still need to be experiencing short term, unexpected and unpreventable circumstances.  However it helps us to know if you are registered with D&N when assessing your application. Please do indicate this when prompted on the form, and indicate in your Student Statement how your need to be registered with D&N may have had a further impact on the circumstances you experienced.

It’s important to note: there are a limited number of actions that the university can take in response to accepted Extenuating Circumstances. Outcomes might include the lifting of a late submission penalty or the opportunity to take the assessment again at the next available opportunity (this may be the next academic year). We cannot increase module marks, a year or degree average, or classification. Full details of the outcomes available can be found here.

You will receive a confirmation by email that you have submitted your form.  

After the EC Committee has met to review applications for each term, you will receive an interim notification to confirm if your application has been accepted or rejected.

The following accepted applications will also receive a final outcome at this time:

• If you applied to have a late penalty removed from a late submission, and this has been accepted you will receive confirmation of this with your interim outcome.
• If you applied to defer an assessment (PGT students only) and this has been accepted, you will receive confirmation of this with your interim outcome.

All other accepted ECs will be forwarded to the Department Assessment Boards, which meet at the end of each academic year for consideration of suitable mitigation.

Final outcome letters are sent by email to your university email account (or for students on non-standard partner programmes, to the email provided in your application) on the day your results are released.

You can only apply for ONE assessment to be taken into consideration on each application. Extenuating circumstances are available to enable the university to mitigate where a short term unexpected circumstance has affected your ability to complete an assessment.  

You may apply again if your circumstances continue and affect later assessments or if new circumstances occur at a later date. 

If your circumstances are longer term and are affecting multiple assessments, then extenuating circumstances may not be the most appropriate means of support. Please seek advice from your tutor, the SU or support services you are engaged with, such as D&N or Wellbeing. 

An INTERIM outcome will be provided if the Department Assessment Board will not be meeting to review your results until some time after your application. The INTERIM outcome will tell you if your application has been accepted or rejected. It will not be able to inform you what mitigation, if any, will be applied.

A FINAL outcome is provided for all accepted applications and tells you what regulatory outcome, if any, the Department Assessment Board has decided to apply in your case. For example; an opportunity to take the assessment again or the lifting of a late penalty.

In SOME case you will receive your INTERIM and FINAL outcome at the same time.

The date when you will receive an outcome for your application is available in the 'Deadlines & Appication Form' information available here.