Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

An academic appeal is an appeal by a registered student:

• against a University decision as to the Student's success or failure in meeting an academic standard or other academic requirement of the University; or
• as to the applicability to the Student's case of any academic regulation of the University.

You can only launch an appeal if you are a registered student and all levels of appeal at the Divisional level have been exhausted.

Each Division/Faculty has its own policies and divisional petitions/appeals processes. Available remedies differ for undergraduate and graduate students and amongst Divisions and Faculties.  For more information on Divisional processes, you can find links to their webpages here: Process Specific Resources & Documents.

If you are unsure to which Division you belong, you can check your academic record on ROSI, which will list the Division in which you are registered.

If you are registered at the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM), or, University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC), then that would be considered your respective Division.

*For all graduate students, regardless of your area of study, your Division is the School of Graduate Studies (SGS).

No, University decisions regarding admissions cannot be appealed through the ADFG Office.

To launch an appeal with the Academic Appeals Committee of the Governing Council, a student must file an electronic copy of a Notice of Appeal, and all supporting documentation, to the Office of Appeals, Discipline and Faculty Grievances within 90 calendar days following the Decision of his or her divisional appeals committee. If the deadline date coincides with a day on which the University is closed, the deadline for filing the Notice of Appeal is 5:00 p.m. on the next regular business day.

See How to File an Appeal

Supporting documentation should assist the Committee in understanding the grounds for your appeal and remedy that you are seeking. Supporting documentation may include past petition forms, University of Toronto Medical Certificates, medical records, email correspondence, etc. You should include any document upon which you intend to rely, including a copy of all the materials you submitted to the previous body whose decision you are appealing.

When a Notice of Appeal is filed, the ADFG Office’s first step is to review the Notice of Appeal and Appeal Package for completeness. You are not permitted to withhold pertinent information until the hearing. It is expected that all your material will be submitted prior to the scheduling of the hearing and within the required timelines.

After the ADFG Office confirms the completeness of your Appeal Package, the appeal documents will be forwarded to the relevant Division with a request that the Division provide a written Response to the appeal. The Division has 60 calendar days to submit its Response.

Upon receipt of the Division’s Response, the ADFG Office will forward the Response to you. You are then given two weeks to Reply to the Response. You are not required to provide a Reply. If you wish to submit a Reply, the Reply should only include information responding to any new information the Division raised in its Response, that you did not address in your original Notice of Appeal.

Once you and the Division have submitted all materials to the ADFG Office, a hearing date is scheduled. The date, time and names of the panel members hearing the appeal will be forwarded to you and the Division.

The period between submitting your appeal, including supporting documentation, to the hearing date varies depending on the complexity of the appeal and the availability of committee members, etc. There are three hearing months per year (October, February/March and June). In the interest of having appeals heard in a timely manner and as expeditiously as possible, you are expected to make yourself available during the hearing week that the ADFG Office proposes. Additionally, due to the number of people who reserve time to hear these appeals, and the difficulty in finding common availability (i.e. chairs, faculty and student AAC members and Divisional representatives), the ADFG Office expects you to make your appeal hearing a priority.

There are circumstances when the ADFG Office may close your file without a hearing.  An appeal may be deemed abandoned and therefore closed, for one or more of the following reasons:
 

1. You fail to complete your appeal with all required documentation and/or within the appropriate timelines
2. You do not make yourself available and/or are unresponsive to communications or requests, and you do not provide valid reasons and/or appropriate documentation to explain your unavailability/unresponsiveness;
3. You do not make yourself available to have your appeal heard by the second available hearing week, and do not provide valid reasons and or documentation explaining why you need the hearing deferred.

Yes, you and the Division are entitled to legal representation. Students sometimes choose a friend, student legal caseworker from Downtown Legal Services or lawyer to represent them at the appeal.  Anyone you bring who is not your representative is not normally allowed to speak or participate.

Hearings are open to the public in accordance with s. 9.(1) of the Statutory Powers Procedure Act, R.S.O. 1990, Chap. S.22, as amended. Normally, however, only the individuals who are directly involved in a case will attend the hearing. These individuals include the three panel members (one legally-qualified chair, one teaching staff member and one student member); the Student appellant; counsel representing the appellant, if any; the Divisional representative; counsel representing the Division, if any; and a staff member of the ADFG Office.

The Student or Division may request a closed hearing. A Student can request a closed hearing on the Notice of Appeal Form. The reasons for requesting a closed hearing will be reviewed by the Chair at the beginning of the hearing.

Click here to see "Who is Going to be at the Hearing?".

Appeals are heard by three people from the Academic Appeals Committee (the “Committee”): one chair who is legally qualified, one teaching staff member and, one student member. The Committee’s role is to review the Division/Faculty’s decision to determine if it was reasonable and not to retry the case. The Committee is neutral and will know nothing about you or your case other than what is contained in the appeal materials submitted by you and the Division. The Committee will make a determination about the case only after hearing submissions from you and the Division.

At the hearing, the chair explains the procedure, which normally occurs as follows:
 

• You or your representative present your case.
• There may be clarifying questions asked of you by the Committee and/or the Division.
• The Division has the opportunity to present its case.
• You may be provided an opportunity to ask clarifying questions of the Division. The Committee may also have clarifying questions for the Division.
• You will be given a brief opportunity to reply.
• You and the Division present your closing statements.
   

For additional information, please see What Happens at an Academic Appeal Hearing?

Normally, the written Decision is released four to six weeks after your hearing, but this depends upon the case.

Decisions of the Academic Appeals Committee are final, and any remedy granted in a Decision will be imposed.

The Decision, with the name of the Student removed, is posted on the ADFG web site and it is presented to the Academic Board, which occurs twice a year.

There are a number of remedies that exist. You will have to determine which remedy or, remedies best fit your circumstances. Please see the section What Remedies Are Available?

Pursuant to the Practice Direction on Reconsiderations of the Senior Chair, decisions of the Academic Appeal Committee are final. Accordingly, requests for reconsideration of its decisions will not be accepted.

Click here to see “What Can I Do if I Don’t Agree with the Decision?”

Hearings are generally held virtually via Zoom.  In exceptional circumstances, a hearing may be held in-person. In such situations, the hearing would normally be held in Simcoe Hall on the St. George campus, but there may be exceptions.

To ensure that appeals are heard quickly, hearings are held three times a year (known as “Academic Appeal hearing months”). The hearing months are every October, February/March and June.

In cases where you have specifically requested that your matter be expedited (ie. rushed), and there are valid reasons for this request, the Senior Chair will determine whether the request is granted. If it is, the ADFG Office will attempt to schedule your hearing as soon as possible.

*NOTE: Although the ADFG Office makes an effort to schedule expedited matters as quickly as possible, factors that must be taken into account are timeline delays caused by lack of communication with the ADFG Office, late submissions by the Student and/or Division (Notice of Appeal, documentation, Response and Reply), and the availability of AAC members to serve on a panel.

Hearings normally begin at 8:45 a.m., at 1:45 p.m. or at 5:15p.m. and are held from Monday to Friday. The duration of each appeal hearing is normally approximately two to three hours.  As hearings may take longer than three hours, you and the Division should plan to stay longer and avoid scheduling anything directly after the appeal hearing.

The ADFG Office asks that you, the Division and the other attendees bring your calendars to the hearing to facilitate the scheduling of another hearing date and time, should a hearing take significantly longer than the scheduled time.

Academic appeals heard by the Academic Appeals Committee are not recorded.

Although there is no dress code, attendees usually dress in business casual or business attire.

If you need a disability-related accommodation to participate in this academic appeal process, please review and follow the procedure set out in the Protocol for Requesting Accommodation for Disabilities in the Academic Appeal Process.