Letters and the Petition process

From GradBook

You will get pleasant, warm letters from the department when you complete your TQE and RQE requirements, submit your thesis proposal, etc. You may also occasionally receive nasty, threatening letters from the department when things aren't going so well:

Dear _________

At the end of last term, the Committee on Graduate Students wrote you about its serious 
concern that you have not yet completed your Research Qualifying Examination (RQE).  The 
letter asked that you submit and RQE application and take the examination in the fall term.
According to our records, you have not yet done so. 

I am writing to urge you to submit an RQE application well in advance of the beginning of the 
spring term on February 1.  If you have not done so, you will have to petition the Committee 
on Graduate Students for permission to register for the spring term. 

"Permission to register" of course includes registration for the research assistantship class for example, which means you cannot get paid. They do mean it.

This brings us to petitions:

• Petitions (what is a petition, most common kinds of petitions)

You're good at excuses and explanations, those may go some way, but the strongest petitions have the support of your research advisor. If your research advisor is happy with you and wants to keep you going and has money to do so, they can do a lot for you. Or at least so is the common wisdom.

Any deviation from the standard course of graduate study can be petitioned, and you should think of petitions as a useful way to communicate your special circumstances and wishes to the department.