International student who was withdrawn allowed to re-sit examinations

We recently represented an international student who had failed several examinations in the penultimate year of his course. Our client was given the opportunity to re-sit the examinations though failed these on the second attempt and was withdrawn from his course and after which, came to seek advice from us. Our client had been suffering with depression for two years in the lead up to his failure of the examinations and re-sit examinations which he did not disclose to the University or any family or friends due to cultural difficulties, though, he was able to comfortably disclose this to our specialist Solicitors. We were able to recommend and arrange a specialist psychologist to assess the him and provide a report as to his mental well-being. We asked the medical expert to comment on our client’s mental health retrospectively, and at the time of the examinations and re-sit examinations, to see whether he was in a fit mental state to sit these or to declare that he was not fit to sit them. The expert in turn, did find that the Student was depressed at the relevant time. Accordingly, we were then able, under our client’s instructions, to prepare grounds of appeal, under the University’s appeal procedures, stating that our client should be afforded a fresh second attempt at all of the examinations he had failed due to his depressive episode.  We succeeded in our submissions and were able to overcome the general rule that should a student have mitigating circumstances, these should be declared before an examination in order to be considered, especially mitigating circumstances, like in this case, which were present for a long time. The University conceded and upheld the appeal allowing our client a fresh second attempt at the examinations and, allowing him a choice of when he wanted to sit these. Our client is now on the road to recovery and to successfully completing his degree at the University.