Anonymous wrote:This won’t help the OP and her daughter, but for kids still in the college selection/application process, know that schools with self-scheduled exams offer a HUGE boost in quality of life. Great for stress bunny kids and parents who want to purchase advance tickets for homeward travel.

Self scheduled exams as a criteria for picking a school? GMAFB. Your snowflake can deal.

This won’t help the OP and her daughter, but for kids still in the college selection/application process, know that schools with self-scheduled exams offer a HUGE boost in quality of life. Great for stress bunny kids and parents who want to purchase advance tickets for homeward travel.

Prof here. There is some complexity here.

Students sometimes ask this. I always find it annoying. But sometimes I accommodate.

Particularly if it is a large class and a the test is the very last day and a bunch of students ask.

To accommodate, I need to make up an entirely different version of the test, so it's annoying. Depending on my test format, it may be more/less annoying (some tests are easy to write; others are not).

If students have multiple tests the same day, then we are required to offer an alternative date. In a large class, there will probably be students in this category, and so I might as well offer the test at an earlier date, make up an alternative version, and then allow other students to join.

Medical issues seem pretty legit

I spent the Thurs night-Saturday of the weekend before finals my first semester in student health hooked up to an iv (freak virus that hit me hard). I was supposed to have 2 finals on Monday. I called one of the profs and asked if there was any chance I could move it to later in the week. He was very kind and accommodating, knowing the circumstances.

I also had to move some midterms my senior year due to my grandfather’s funeral. I knew it was coming (he had been very ill for a while) and had told all my profs at the beginning of the semester that it could happen anytime. It just was bad luck that it was midterms time.

Anyway, professors can be quite understanding in difficult circumstances.

Yea this is an annoying post. Like so many DCUM posters, OP buried the lead. Had she said from the beginning that the student has a chronic health condition the responses - including mine - would have been dramatically different from the outset. Why do so many posters do this?

Since it is a medical thing, I would ask if she can take the final remotely. As a prof I would probably allow that.

The dates and classrooms are arranged by the Registrar for all classes and time bands. It is a logistical Tetris puzzle feat to schedule all such exams because you are generally converting 75 minute or 50 minute typical classes into 3 hour finals and then spreading those out across all of the actual classrooms over a 7-10 day stretch of finals with maybe a reading day or two interspersed. Technically, the Professor needs to abide by the schedule to avoid overlap and preferential treatment. Students cannot simply schedule their exams at their own convenience. Now multiply this by 100+ students. This is why your one request is SO difficult. International students must travel over oceans. Everyone wants done earlier if possible. It’s a giant university. It’s difficult to accommodate finals for all of the hundreds of classes offered.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If she has medical or other appointments, it's ok to ask. Worst case they say no.

OP here. We’re flying her home between finals so she can get a jump on next series of medical tests. It’s fine. She wants to take finals with peers. Sucks to be chronically ill.

Again, this involves a scheduled medical test and a plane. It doesn’t hurt for her to ask, not you. The worst that happens is she’s told no. But it sounds like she doesn’t want anything moved anyway.

I’ve been teaching college classes for decades, & if a kid has been a good & respectful student I have always tried to accommodate such requests. I had a weird situation in grad school where I requested a slight change in an exam time due to an event at a legitimate charity I was chairman of, & the prof dismissed my polite request without even thinking about it. It was one of those situations in which you say to yourself, “If I’m ever in that situation, I hope I won’t be such a dick.”

Anonymous wrote:If she has medical or other appointments, it's ok to ask. Worst case they say no.

OP here. We’re flying her home between finals so she can get a jump on next series of medical tests. It’s fine. She wants to take finals with peers. Sucks to be chronically ill.

If she has medical or other appointments, it's ok to ask. Worst case they say no.

It depends on the school - the class - the professor. But no one can answer this question except for the professor.

Your college student should go during office hours and ask if there is any flexibility.

Just ask.

Professor back, if her health is the issue she should be working through the office of disability services. Likely this will mean selecting courses with the flexiblity she will need but it may also mean some flexibility in exams given online or something. But exams can't be moved earlier because, they are intentionally spread out so that kids don't have all of them all at once and they don't overlap in times and conflict.

that means she will have less time to study for the exams, if she takes them earlier.