• The Student Guide to Extenuating Circumstances - 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 last assessment affected by your circumstances.  It is important that you do not apply in advance so the Committee can consider your application on actual fact rather than speculation on how a circumstance may affect you. You can apply for up to 5 assessments to be taken into consideration on each application. You may apply again if your circumstances continue and affect later assessments or if new circumstances occur at a later date. Leaving your application to the last minute close to the final 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

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 regularly throughout the year.  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 College 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 in the Student Guide to Extenuating Circumstances.

Evidence needs to be in English wherever possible. Where your evidence is not in English you will be required to provide a translation either by an authorised notary/legal practitioner or by a third party (not a family member). The third party must provide their name, contact number, email and relationship to yourself must be provided. They must consent to be contacted for verification purposes. 

• Evidence provided should be relevant to the circumstances you are reporting and cover the period of time for which you are claiming.
• Evidence needs to be attributable to yourself – example of evidence we cannot/will not accept include photographs of injuries, photos of persons who have passed away,  photographs of yourself in a particular place or photographs of the consequences of accident, domestic crisis or crime. The only exception to this is where the photographs you are providing are official police or medical photographs clearly labelled with your personal details or a relevant crime number. Where such photographs may contain sensitive or distressing images you must indicate this on your application.
• Our systems currently have difficulty opening HEIC image files (usually generated by newer iPhone models) – where your file is an HEIC file please convert to jpeg format before uploading.
• If you wish you can provide a pdf/word document outlining more detailed/complex areas of your circumstance - the form will provide you with space to give the most pertinent details but you may have more information that you feel relevant.

The application form will prompt you when to upload your statement and evidence.

It’s important to note: there are a limited number of actions that the College 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.

You will be informed of the outcome of your application on the same day that you received your progression decision/results. This may be some time after you have submitted your application. As long as you have received a confirmation email when submitting your form you do not need to follow up on your application.  Please only contact the team about your application if you have not received a confirmation email or you have further evidence to submit, think you may have made a mistake in your application or wish to withdraw your application. 

Outcome letters are sent by email to your College email account (or for students on non-standard partner programmes to the email provided in your application).

PGT students requesting a deferral of assessment will receive an outcome after your application has been presented to the next available EC committee (usually monthly throughout the year).

Some outcomes relating to late submission of assessments may be made available throughout the year if the EC committee and Department Assessment Board think this appropriate.