Silly excuses for not taking exams. (Educators, chime in!)

[Maddy McCall]

In the past five years, here are some of the excuses I've received, with requests for make-up exams:

1. I drove a nail through my hand and I can't write.

2. I sat on a piece of glass and had to have surgery on my ass cheek.

3. I had to be in court for a criminal trial in which I was the defendant.

AND MY FAVORITE--the most recent one I received:

4. I'm pledging a sorority and it's just so stressful. I haven't been able to cope for the past two months because of it. I didn't know where I was for the past two days.

[Bunny]

1. Maddy, I think you should cut the sorority girl some slack.

She seems truly bewildered. :rofl:

[Maddy McCall]

2. Of all the excuses I've received, that was the most ridiculous.

Swear to god, I could author a book.

:hi:

[Lisa]

3. I can't beat #4!

The most memorable one I've had to date was the guy who claimed he couldn't come to school on that day because he'd driven his car into a telephone pole while drunk, so he had no vehicle to get across town.

My supervisor just received an e-mail from one student asking to write the exam a week later, because she was already working at her summer job in Alberta, and didn't want to spend the airfare to come back here next week. But she was going to be in town the week after, since she had to write her physics final, even though she'd asked that prof if she could do the exam at some other time! (My supervisor's response: "I agree with your physics prof's decision, and have decided to copy it.")

[Maddy McCall]

4. The coddled generation, I guess.

"I can't do so and so because it's not convenient in my life."

Actually, most of my students (all-in-all in the past five years) have been great. It's this incoming crop of freshmen about which I am most concerned. I've even received emails "screaming at me," AND I've been referred to by one student in class by my FIRST name.

What gives?

[Lisa]

7. last year, I received an e-mail that bad-mouthed my teaching assistant

... basically, blaming him because the student had messed up and submitted the wrong lab, even after being given written instructions. (Strangely, everyone else in the section got it right ... perhaps because, unlike that particular student, they weren't seniors from another department who were "slumming" in an intro class, skipping a lot of the labs because of overconfidence.)

Anyway, I e-mailed the student back, noting that he really ought to apologize for the outright vicious personal remarks he'd made, since his TA had talked me into bumping up his grade -- though if he insisted on claiming that the TA was incompetent, I would clearly have to disallow any extra marks being granted by a stupid person.


p.s. the "ass cheek" one, I do have pity for. One of my students 2 years ago lost a testicle during a rugby game, and was so embarrassed that he didn't want to tell me during class, in case the others overheard and made fun of him ... I gave him extra time to recover from surgery (and no, I didn't demand to see proof).

[Maddy McCall]

13. Profs are always going to be supportive of their TAs

TAs have jumped through academic hoops, and most only get assistantships if they are outstanding students. Therefore, for an undergrad who's screwed up to blame a TA for it is just wrong. I'd have a hard time having that UG student in my class, after that little trick.

My TA fields questions all day long that are answered in my syllabus. My syllabus is very thorough. No reason for students to pester my TA about upcoming assignments. Yet they do.

Indeed, they will get up in the middle of class (auditorium classroom) to go back to the TA's desk (in the back of the room) to ask for permission to hand in late assignments, take make-up tests, etc.

I've had to halt lecture to tell Ms. Smith to please take her seat. These kids are so socially inept, it's unbelievable. And it just began this year.

My TA gave one student an F on her midterm. She came to me and claimed that "I was a straight A student in HS, so he's just not grading fairly and I deserve at least a B on this test." I told her that my TA was a much easier grader than I am, but if she'd like, I'd regrade her exam, and the grade could go up or down. She didn't want the exam regraded after that--I did look over it, and he was actually lenient on her sorry essay.

Oh I could go on and on. I really could.

I'm so glad it's Friday. :-)

[hfojvt]

21. I am from an earlier generation though

asking for a break because of my transportation issues.

Then what is the prof's excuse. "I cannot give you a make-up exam, because it is not convenient for me." My philsophy prof was too good to exist. She was the third person I asked, having been turned down twice, once even in my own department. So I said "I have an unreasonable request." She said "I do not think that is unreasonable at all." Again it was probably a case where I would have skipped the final, which probably would have taken me from an A to a C, or less. I did not need the course to graduate.

[Maddy McCall]

24. If you were an A student in my class, and had attended class regularly...

and had asked for no make-ups and had always turned in work on time, I'd have let you take the exam early--and I wouldn't have thought anything about it.

[Lisa]

27. I'm more lenient than my supervisor is, if students ask ahead of time ...

I figure that it's good for people to learn to plan ahead, and not let things go until the last minute. So if they ask in advance, I usually say yes -- unless it's clearly a matter of personal convenience and could be resolved by simply working around it (and not putting all the onus on me).

[petronius]

5. "I just found out my boyfriend is cheating on me"

She was too distraught to study...

I've also gotten #3 on your list.

[Maddy McCall]

6. You know, I'd almost let her out of the exam for that one.

Except for the fact that one of our doctoral students found out that her boyfriend was cheating on her before her comps and SHE took the test anyway. And passed with flying colors.

I can remember being that age and how upsetting it can be to find out something like that.

But many times, I think that some of those excuses are lies intended to generate pity and leniency.

(I'm not as bad as some profs in our dept, who demand a newspaper copy of the obit, when they claim that granny died.)

[petronius]

9. Actually, I did let her make it up

I had so many make-ups in that class that one more wasn't an issue, and at least she was unique (and I did know how she felt).

I do agree that many (if not most) excuses are bogus, or at least are distorted to make the student appear more deserving. I'm a lot stricter about requiring proof these days, although I will err on the side of generosity if the student in question hasn't caused me any problems...

[ZombieNixon]

8. This quarter is the first in which my philosophy prof is not taking

"death in the family" as an acceptable excuse for not attending class. This is because last quarter a student had 12 grandfathers die tragically. :crazy:

[Lisa]

11. an interesting statistical analysis of this situation

"The basic problem can be stated very simply: A student's grandmother is far more likely to die suddenly just before the student takes an exam, than at any other time of year."



http://www.cis.gsu.edu/~dstraub/Courses/Grandma.htm

[petronius]

16. That's beautiful! (nt)

[Maddy McCall]

18. I just saved that for my fall syllabus.

I'll be researching this summer--no teaching. YAY!

But I need that for the fall. Thanks!!!

[Lisa]

23. let me know if you'd like any more of this kind of thing ...

That goes for all the other DU instructors out there. I collect "bits" like this for my own courses, and for my colleagues (who teach stats, cartography, and research methods) -- I'd be happy to share.

[Maddy McCall]

25. Can you start a thread in the Professors group here?

I haven't posted in ages in there, but recently I have so many situations popping up, I want to start posting in there again.

What do you think?

[Maddy McCall]

35. Lisa, here's a link for ya...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=253

Read NJCher's thread--about excuses--in that forum, on the forum's first page. :rofl:

[petronius]

14. 12 is really pushing it...

I've had students 'lose' 3 grandmothers over a couple of semesters (I guess it's theoretically possible, but I wasn't buying it).

[hfojvt]

10. I had three finals that I wanted to take early

because of ride issues. One prof allowed it and two did not.
Living in a dorm, they kick you out between trimester breaks. Without a car and 300 miles from my parents place without a decent bus connection, getting a ride is a serious problem. In one case I just skipped the exam. I was flunking the class anyway, but hey, if you cannot trust a senior physics major in a physics class, who can you trust? That was at the end of the school year, and my parents were going to a cousin's wedding in NY. It would have been a humongous hassle for me to stay and take that exam and arrange moving out of the dorm, etc.

OTOH, I gave a number of students make-up exams when I was an instructor/grad student. One "student" I remember got 100% on the multiple choice portion of the exam. That's what I get, I guess, for being nice and gullible and lazy. I ahd another student who needed a make-up final because his guard unit got called up to Desert Shield.

[Maddy McCall]

15. I'd have let you take it early, but it would have been all-essay...

and not the test the rest of the students would receive.

All of my make-up exams are all essay and much more difficult than the ones taken at the appointed class time.

Your circumstances would have warranted some flexibility, I think, and I'd have helped you out.

:hi:

[skygazer]

17. Not a teacher but I don't have a lot of sympathy for ride issues

At work or at school. In life, you need to set your priorities and order your life so that you can meet them. I went for 3 months without any car at all, living on top of a very remote mountain - no bus service, no mass transit, no nothing. In that time, I was not late for work a single time nor did I miss any work. I caught rides, I walked, I hitchhiked, I made it work. Several times, I stayed at a friend's in Aptos which is over the hill on the ocean - to get to my job took over 6 HOURS by several busses. Hassle? Hell, yes. MY responsibility to get there, rather than my employers? Hell, yes. And they should not be expected to change their schedule to fit mine. Nor should a school.

[Maddy McCall]

22. Same here.

About knowing that it's my responsibility to be at work when I'm supposed to be there. I commute almost 200 miles round-trip to work.

Just curious. How old are you? I'm 40. I think that we were raised differently from many kids today. My dad was a Depression-era baby in the rural south. He instilled in me the work ethic that I still carry with me. Indeed, when he was diagnosed with cancer, I wanted to take a day off to spend it with him, and he told me NO, that he would be much more happier if I would go teach than if I were sitting there with him feeling pity for him.

That's how I was raised. That's how I am today. That's how I'm raising my son.

:hi:

[skygazer]

26. I'm 45 and I've often wondered if it was generational

I've been like this since I got my first job at 13. My kids are also conscientious workers - my oldest was a little flighty when she first started working but she's 25 now and has been with her company for a while. A couple of promotions and she's very reliable and hardworking.

I was 26 and a mother of two when I first called in sick to work. The funny thing was that I wasn't even sick! My husband talked me into blowing off work and doing something or other and I felt so guilty, I didn't enjoy myself at all. LOL

[Maddy McCall]

29. I didn't miss a single day of school as an UG...

and I was raising a small child. I made pre-arrangements for all kinds of hypotheticals...so that when they did arise, I could go to Plan A or Plan B.

Yeah, I think it's generational; I will add, though, that I have some good young students who are just outstanding...they are high achievers and they give me no problems. Problems students this semester is probably at about 50%.

[hfojvt]

37. Nope, I am 44

I did a paper route six days a week when I was 13 until I was 17. At 20 though I had far fewer resources - no credit card, no income, and no driver's license.

I had another ride issue where I wanted to go 60 some miles to Mad-town. A friend was going earlier in the evening, but I had to work 2nd shift. She told me to call in sick, but I refused to do it, even though it was a temp job. I made other arrangements for a ride, but got called at work and told that his car was not working.

So I ended up going by bicycle, starting at 1 in the morning. Then I could not find a hotel that would take a check and almost had to bike home. I had plenty of leg power, but I could not stay awake. Fortunately I finally found a hotel that would take a check. The funny thing was - I quit that job the next day.

[hfojvt]

33. hitchhiking 300 miles in a Minnesota winter?

Not really possible is it? Going to work is a daily issue rather than a one time shot like a final exam. And in the case of the school, I am paying them, not the other way around. I had an employer in Iowa who would pay employees for snow days. I was a temp. On one snowy day, my supervisor says to me - "what are you doing here? Don't you live out of town?" I did, but I did not consider it a big deal to drive in that day.

I would look at is this way, suppose your work schedule requires you to make one of those six hour bus rides to get to work. However, if you could switch days with a co-worker that problem would vanish. Suppose further that switching days is no big deal for your co-worker. Should he/she be required to switch days? No. Is switching days the decent, compassionate thing to do? Heck yeah!

[skygazer]

36. Well, first of all, it's not IMpossible

But second of all, you're looking at it far too narrowly. This is not something that should have been figured out at the last moment - everyone knows when finals are. And hitchhiking is not the only option. Seeing only one solution (or none) to a given issue is not conducive to getting much of anywhere.

As for who is paying whom, I don't see the relevance. Just because you're paying tuition doesn't mean you get the right to set your own time frame.

[hfojvt]

38. I am not sure when the final schedule came out

I do not think it was at the beginning of the semester. There were plenty of options considered, but none were very attractive. Clearly I did not do alot of planning in that time, so I was lucky I did not have more problems than I did. How unfortunate that there was not a good college in my hometown, but college ended up being a waste of time and money anyway.

[Lisa]

20. I've actually tended to allow advance writing ...

... even though my department gives me some flak for it. (I feel it's at least possible to check on potential cheating if you have only one or two people who could have passed along information, as opposed to an entire class that's already written the exam.)

The conditions are that the student has to let me know well in advance, and it has to be due to some major unforseen scheduling conflict (not just someone gambling on when the final exam might be, and buying a cheapo air ticket someplace before the school's schedule comes out). I even let the spouse of a guy who was being deployed to Afghanistan do an early exam (because her husband only had 2 weeks between training and shipping out). Unfortunately, if they leave it until AFTER the exam to tell me what's going on, there's not much I can do, except for omitting the exam from their final grade -- and that's only with a medical excuse.

Like you, I've been burned a couple of times. I actually bumped into a guy, on campus, after he'd written an early exam -- he'd sworn that he'd be working in another province by then. One year I ended up making 4 versions of the final exam for people who were writing at various times ... which made the grades difficult to compare.

[skygazer]

12. They will later give silly excuses for getting out of work

I was just given a kid (early 20's - I'm at the point where anyone under about 35 is a "kid" to me, though never to their face) to help me out in my department. He was sceduled for 4 this morning - showed up at 5.

Me - "What time were you scheduled to get here?" (knowing full well)

Him - "Four."

Me - "Oh. What time is it?" (I was there at midnight, after going to bed at 8 pm)

Him - "Five. I'm an hour late. Four's a little early for me."

Me - :nuke:


Seriously, how do these people keep a job? I told him that if he wanted to work for ME, he'd better make a point of being there when scheduled. He can go back to bagging groceries, for all I care.

Too fucking early! Sheesh! :grr:

[Maddy McCall]

19. When mine have complained that I give them too much work...

(which I don't!), I always tell them that they can leave college and go stock shelves at Walmart or flip burgers at Dairy Queen, both of which will be much more excruciating work than preparing two small papers and taking three exams.

Jeesh. These kids don't know what work is. They leave high school driving brand new SUVs and sports cars. They've never had to work for what they have.

When MMjr gets to the age that he can work, he will work--even if it's bagging groceries at the Piggly Wiggly. I'll buy his car (he's inheriting my 1983 Jeep Renegade) but he will pay his insurance out of his paycheck.

And just by requiring that one little thing of my son, he'll be way ahead of other college students when he enrolls.

[ucmike]

28. from the other side.....

i was taking finals in my senior year and ended up with two scheduled for the same time period. one had been scheduled in advance so i went to the professor who scheduled second and explained and asked how he wanted to handle it and that i was able to accomodate his schedule.

he told me that sometimes in life things don't work out and that as an adult it was my problem to solve. i thought he was joking and asked when i could take his exam. he looked at me and told me that if i wasn't at his scheduled exam i would fail the course. there was no negotiating, he didn't do makeup exams. i went to the head of my dept who told me that that professor was a real pain in the ass and to pleeeeeease try to work it out with the other teacher before he'd get involved. fortunately, the teacher who scheduled his exam first allowed me to take his exam early and avoid the conflict.

[Maddy McCall]

30. That's your college's fault. Your registrar schedules exams....

and is supposed to do so in a way that isn't conflictual.

At our uni, profs have to follow the registrar's exam schedule, with no deviation. I've never had an incident like that come up.

Sounds like the first professor in your post is a good person.

Your second professor was unreasonable.

[Lisa]

31. for a sec, I wondered if you were one of my students!

Then I saw that the instructor who'd scheduled first was a guy. That exact same situation happened to me a couple of years ago, and I was the one who ended up letting the student write at a different time, because of overlap -- and the "other guy" was someone whom not even the chair wanted to deal with. (In theory it's not supposed to occur at my school, because Administration sets the final exam timetable, not the individual instructors -- but it still does happen.)

[Maddy McCall]

32. If we deviate on exam times from the registrar's schedule, we...

can get called to the carpet if students complain.

Not a good scenario at all! :(

[Lisa]

34. it has to be pretty drastic for them to actually alter the exam time

A "significant number" of students (and interestingly, they've never really defined the exact threshold) need to have either another exam happening at the same time, or 2 more on the same calendar day, before Admin will pick another timeslot and reschedule. We're expected to deal with "anomalies" on our own (by letting the student write an advance or make-up version).

My supervisor doesn't trust Admin, after they scheduled another required course on top of his (for the regular semester classes) -- after having a dozen people repeatedly walk out of the middle of his 2:30-4 lecture, he decided to have a take-home exam, just in case Admin had done something similar with the finals. (Probably not, but one never knows -- until the schedules come out a month before.)

[alarimer]

39. I never missed an exam in college

Or grad school for that matter. I never skipped class either. And I have never called in sick to work when I wasn't. In fact I go in when I am a little sick and my boss makes me go home! But then I haven't had any medical or family problems (which may be legitimate excuses most of the time). But I heard my classmates make all kinds of excuses and I would just cringe to hear them. And this was 15 years ago when I was in college. I wouldn't know if it is worse now or not but it does seem like people expect the world to revolve around them or something.

[salin]

40. Thankfully the only time I taught undergrads was at a place

where the students would be absolutely ashamed to cough up such excuses. Far too competitve. I did have a major paper - the first time students ever had to write a policy paper which is very different than a typical research paper; I met with each student far in advance to help them flesh out advice, and to discuss the different task they had in front of them compared to other papers they often wrote. I even gave the option (because I took the charge of teaching not just the content, but how to write this different kind of writing seriously) for students to turn in a draft a week or more early - and that I would give feedback before they turned in the final draft. That is where I got the excuses. It was mostly upper classmen - and while they wouldn't consider blowing off a major assignment (1/3 of their grade) some realized that they were turning in less than stellar products, and had not taken advantage of the offers for extra help... They were more sheepish excuses (ala - okay this isn't going to be very good - but really I can do better except for....)

Wasn't a normal situation. In great part to the institutions and the students it drew (over achievers to the X extent) - and also because it one of the few grad level courses open to students in a major that wanted some policy experience... mostly srs who were starting to "slack" hence the lack of extra effort - but the awareness of the underpar stuff (for them) they were turning in. Adequate performances, funny excuses, and few papers that any would submit for job or grad school admission writing samples.

Ya, I know, I should just shut up. It was the opposite experience just over five years earlier which encouraged by father to take early retirement from his U.