Illness and Personal Problems
The content of this page is currently being updated and not all information may be correct at this time. Please contact the CUSU/ GU Student Advice Service or a Tutor of your College for more information and advice.
With the short, work-intensive terms at Cambridge, illness or personal problems, such as bereavement, can cause disruption to your degree work. If you are affected by illness or personal problems, be it only for a week or for a much longer period, let your DoS or personal tutor know if you feel it could have affected your work in any way. If you have to miss a supervision, tell your supervisor and try and arrange it for another time. They should be understanding and could give you some help in catching up if you need it. Try not to panic if you have missed quite a bit of work; you can always ask other students or your supervisors for help on work you've missed and there's always the vacations to do a bit of catching up in if you have to.
For more serious problems that you feel could really affect your performance in the exams, there are steps that can be taken to help you. It is important that you tell your tutor as soon as possible so that they can start to make the arrangements that you need.
You might feel that you need to take some time out from your course in which case you will want to apply to degrade. For more information see Degrading.
If you have been hindered by illness or other grave cause in preparing for or taking your exams, you may be eligible for an Examination Allowance.
If you are ill or have personal problems during exam term, it is important to let your tutor know and see a doctor, a college nurse or the University Counselling Service (whoever would be most appropriate). Not only is this advisable so that you can receive appropriate medical care, but if you need to appeal against your exam results on the grounds of ill health, you will need to provide medical evidence.
Examination Warnings
Tutors can submit an examination warning on your behalf, which won't mean you'll be awarded extra marks but does mean that examiners can declare you to have 'deserved honours' if your class doesn't reflect the quality of your work. Tutors may inform the Secretary of the Applications Committee that you have had your preparation for an exam hindered and/or will take the exam under an exceptional hindrance, and so there is a potential risk of failure/under-performance. The submission of an exam warning indicates that a Tutor believes there is a strong case for an allowance to be made to you if necessary.
The Chairman of Examiners will be supplied with a list of candidates for whom exam warnings have been submitted, but they will not be told why they have been submitted. The list will not be considered until marking has been completed (for reasons of anonymous marking) and the Examiners have drawn up a provisional class list in accordance with the normal marking and classing conventions. The provisional class list is drawn up before the candidate numbers are decoded into students' names. Now the Examiners act on the Exam warnings.
If you have attended all your exams and have been classed (i.e. haven't failed) then the Chairman of the Examiners will not tell the Examiners about the warning and no action will be taken. However, it is up to the college to then further act on the warning (usually via an application for Declared to have Deserved Honours) if they feel you have done demonstrably worse than you should. This is the procedure for the majority of exam warnings the Chairman of Examiners receive.
If you have attended all of your exams and failed outright or done sufficiently well to warrant an allowance towards the Ordinary BA, the Chairman of Examiners will leave your name off the class list and inform the Deputy Registry. The college will then be able to appeal to the Applications Committee for you to be allowed the examination (equivalent to Unclassified Honours).
If you have been absent for part of the examination, then the Applications Committee will have already decided whether or not the application has been successful before this information reaches the Chairman of Examiners. Therefore one of two things will happen:
If you have been classed in the provisional class-list the Chairman of Examiners will decide, on the basis of the work examined, whether your class is a fair reflection of your true ability. If it is then the Chairman of Examiners will leave you classed, however if he/she feels your work doesn't reflect your true ability based on the quality of your other work, they will remove you from the class-list and award you DDH.
If you have not been classed in the provisional class-list but nevertheless are judged to have performed with credit in a substantial part of the examination, the Chairman of the Examiners will award you DDH. If you have not been judged to have performed with credit, then the college will be invited to apply to allow you the examination.
The names of those who the examiners decide to give Declared to Have Deserved Honours (DDH) to will be published in the class list under the heading 'Declared to Have Deserved Honours'.
Examination warnings can stop you failing and can result in you appearing in the class list whereas you wouldn't if your poor performance was left unexplained. However, it cannot award you a certain class where the examiner has seen no work of that quality.
By being granted Declared to Have Deserved Honours (DDH), you can explain an unusually poor performance in your Tripos exams. It also allows you to proceed to the next year and/or receive a BA Honours Degree (rather than an Ordinary BA). DDH is awarded where the examiners have seen the quality of the candidate's work and therefore know it to be of a good quality. Therefore it's better than being allowed an examination because the Allowances Committee will not see/judge work, and therefore DDH is a sign of a good quality work.
Illness or personal problems on the day of an exam
For more information on what to do if you are ill or have a personal problem on the day of an exam, please click here.
Exam Allowances
If you have been hindered by illness or other grave cause in preparing for or taking your exams, you may be eligible for an Examination Allowance. For more information on Examination Allowances, please click here.
Further Information
For further information and advice, please contact the CUSU/ GU Student Advice Service or a Tutor of your College. The Student Advice Service offers free, confidential and independent support and advice to all students at the University of Cambridge.