How to deal with excuses for exceptions?

[hamburger]

In my school, it is well known that one can buy a doctor's note without being sick. Some students are abusing this to get exceptions. I also heard from a student that his friend is completely healthy but he gets special treatments at school just by telling his doctor that he feels "stressful" at school. This allows his friends to submit assignments late, have more time to take tests, write tests somewhere else, etc. I guess anybody can also fake learning disabilities to get special treatments. So there is nothing that the professors can do? I was told that as long as students have a doctor's note, I have to play along even I disagree or doubt if the cases are authentic.

The number of requests for exceptions has been increasing. Some students mentioned their own sickness. Some asked for extensions for assignments or take the test another time as family member is sick. A student reported being robbed but police did not have time to visit him until the day of the test. Another student reported that she forgot to bring her wallet and had no money to buy a bus ticket to go to school to do the lab. I get many emails about these this semester.  It is driving me crazy. I heard from colleagues of another department saying that some students reported death of pets, multiple death of the same family member, etc.

I asked a colleague who is a Dean working at a local university. He told me that it is also a widespread issue in his university. He told me that a lot of his colleagues' time have been wasted on processing these cases, making extra test papers, etc.

[Hegemony]

I don't tell the students ahead of time, but I always let them turn in their assignments late without penalty.  They come and beg me to give them an extension until, say, Tuesday, and I say, "Well, okay, how about until Wednesday?" and they look incredibly relieved and thankful, and it doesn't matter to me.  I can't grade them all in the first couple of days anyway.  It's not as if none of us academics have ever turned in an article late, am I right?  Right.

[polly_mer]

Again, the best advice is to focus on what you can control.  You do have to make accommodations according to the disabilities office.  If the department insists you accept excuses for everything else, then you accept excuses for everything else.


As LarryC states, choose to be amused.  Ask your colleagues who teach similar classes how they plan classes so they accommodate whatever needs to be accommodated and then do that for this term.

My standard advice for the situations where a mismatch exists between what the professor prefers and the real students in their classes is for the professor to find another job.  Now is the perfect time to start an academic job search in parallel with a continuing non-academic job search.

The world has many jobs where one doesn't have to deal with students who are actively resisting learning.

[pgher]

You doubt students' disabilities. Some disabilities are far from obvious. It is not your place to question them. The disabilities office (whatever it's called) can tell you what they think is reasonable. They have people trained to figure this stuff out. There are legal ramifications if you go against their recommendations.

You have students unable to take a test due to illness, whether their own or someone else's. I suggest you come up with a way to accommodate missed exams that is not too onerous for you and that discourages fakes. What I do is allow students to use their grade on the final exam to substitute for their lowest midterm (including a zero), as long as they are in "good standing." I define that as 50% attendance, 50% homework score. Pretty low bar, and there are no "excused" vs. "unexcused" absences. (The principle is, if you're not in class, it doesn't matter why--you're not there to learn.) Now, I also tell them that the final exam is normally a bloodbath, so don't count on it to help your grade.

Basically, you want to get yourself in a position where you don't have to judge the validity of students' excuses.

[hamburger]

I found such endless and continuous requests overwhelming and hard to keep track of. Based on experience, courses that require students to take quiz every week and all quizzes count lead to more such behavior. Colleagues told me that students here just test their professors to see how far they can push. In other universities I taught, I had zero such request.

This overloads me and creates real headache. If they take the test late, I have to create new test paper. I also found that if I don't please the students, they just go to RateMyProfessor to ruin my reputation. Too bad good students and those I have good relationships don't go there to write good things about me. Based on what I read, professors who allow late submissions, tell them what will be on the tests and show them how to answer those questions are rated as good, caring professors. Those who follow rules and don't please them with their requests are rated as "the worst professor in school ABC", "cannot teach", "OLD", "don't know the materials", etc.

[hamburger]

You doubt students' disabilities. Some disabilities are far from obvious. It is not your place to question them. The disabilities office (whatever it's called) can tell you what they think is reasonable. They have people trained to figure this stuff out. There are legal ramifications if you go against their recommendations.

You have students unable to take a test due to illness, whether their own or someone else's. I suggest you come up with a way to accommodate missed exams that is not too onerous for you and that discourages fakes. What I do is allow students to use their grade on the final exam to substitute for their lowest midterm (including a zero), as long as they are in "good standing." I define that as 50% attendance, 50% homework score. Pretty low bar, and there are no "excused" vs. "unexcused" absences. (The principle is, if you're not in class, it doesn't matter why--you're not there to learn.) Now, I also tell them that the final exam is normally a bloodbath, so don't count on it to help your grade.

Basically, you want to get yourself in a position where you don't have to judge the validity of students' excuses.

Thanks for the suggestion. Courses I teach this term have no final exam. Basically, if students do the labs and come to take the quiz every week and the midterm, they will pass with good grades. Of course, students can "help" each other doing the labs. I already made the quizzes super easy and up to now, I just give top score in lab reports if they submit and with the additional help that I also allow them to fix their mistakes and resubmit during the lab.  However, some students told me that they don't want to lose "any mark". What else do they want? 100% for each? They just keep abusing me. Colleagues told me not to be cornered and bullied by students.

I remember a forum member told us that he just takes the best X-1 out of X assessments. I don't get to write the course outlines that had already been approved by the department. In those course outlines, they stated X assessments in the term once a week (minimum X assessments).

Colleagues working at those special test centres know such abuse.

[Caracal]

In my school, it is well known that one can buy a doctor's note without being sick. Some students are abusing this to get exceptions. I also heard from a student that his friend is completely healthy but he gets special treatments at school just by telling his doctor that he feels "stressful" at school. This allows his friends to submit assignments late, have more time to take tests, write tests somewhere else, etc. I guess anybody can also fake learning disabilities to get special treatments. So there is nothing that the professors can do? I was told that as long as students have a doctor's note, I have to play along even I disagree or doubt if the cases are authentic.


I asked a colleague who is a Dean working at a local university. He told me that it is also a widespread issue in his university. He told me that a lot of his colleagues' time have been wasted on processing these cases, making extra test papers, etc.

What you describe as "feeling stressful" might well be a major anxiety disorder that significantly impairs this student's ability to function. More time to take exams and a separate place to take them are really common accommodations. Submit assignments late is a little trickier, but you are hearing about this third hand. I'd bet that the accommodation just ask professors to be flexible if possible, but leaves it up to them.

As for the rest, this has been well covered. This is a dumb policy, because doctors notes don't mean anything. Of course you can "buy them." I could get a note from my doctor today, because all I would need to do is come in, and say I don't feel well. The doctor would look me over, and unless I reported some really alarming symptom, they would probably tell me it was most likely a virus of some sort. If I asked for a note, they would write one saying that I came in and reported feeling unwell. That's it. 

In general anything that involves the instructor in receiving documentation for out of class stuff is a terrible idea. However, it isn't your dumb policy, it is someone else's dumb policy, so you just need to find ways to manage it. For late assignments, the easiest thing to do is just to take them and stop grumbling. Who cares, just grade the thing and move on. For exams, I would come up with ways to minimize the amount of time you spend on it. I have a standard make up at the end of the semester to avoid these sorts of problems, but on the rare occasions when I have to do a make up exam, I usually just recycle an old exam and mix it up just enough so that if someone had the previous one they couldn't just memorize an answer.

[Ruralguy]

We've outlined your choices a few times:

1. Obey all college rules, and beyond that, do what you please. That could be accepting everything or accepting nothing beyond what the school makes you accept.

Hey, it aggravates all of us too. We then just create a rule we can live with. To some extent, if there are still a few jerks who wish to game the system then let them. Who cares? If they get caught red-handed at cheating, that can be pursued according to college rules.  But other than that, forget about it.


2. Leave, or at least try to. I'm inclined to go with Polly on this one.

3. Continuing what you are doing now, though that will probably crush your soul and lead to other mental and physical issues.  I don't advise this path.


As far as evals go, you kind of answered your own question. You can improve by being more flexible. If you don't want to do that, then it doesn't make you a bad person, but it might lead to job misery.

[Caracal]

100% for each? They just keep abusing me. Colleagues told me not to be cornered and bullied by students.

Sorry, I know I just posted, but you really must stop thinking about your students this way. They just don't have that much power. You're in charge, they can't bully you. All you really need to be is friendly, basically accommodating, but firm when you need to be. When a student wants something and you have to tell them "no," explain why you can't do it. If it is a small thing, emphasize that. "No, sorry, I can't allow for extra revisions on this since you already get one chance to do it and it could just go on forever, but getting a 87 on one of these things isn't a big deal for your grade since we have so many of them. I'd be happy to go over the mistakes on these so you can fix some of these small issues for the next one." That will work 99 times out of 100.