As a student at the Liberty University School of Osteopathic Medicine in Lynchburg, Virginia, you already appreciate how important grades are when it comes to medical school. After all, your grades, along with your MCAT scores, are what helped you get into LUCOM. But now that you’re there, you need to focus on doing as well as possible and making sure that your grades and clinical evaluations accurately reflect your hard work.
When that doesn’t happen – when you receive a grade or evaluation that is lower than what you believe you earned – you need to take steps to correct it. LUCOM has an appeal process that is specifically for grade and evaluation appeals. The LLF National Law Firm’s Student Defense Team can help you make the most of that process. We can work with you to make sure you follow the LUCOM academic grievance procedures and to help you make the strongest case possible for your grade appeal. Call us at 888.535.3686 or fill out our online contact form, and we will schedule a confidential consultation so you can tell us about your grade concerns, and we can explain how we can help.
Don’t Be Afraid to Question Your Grade
Many students are concerned that if they question the grade or evaluation that they received, it will come back to haunt them, that the faculty member who gave them the mark will take it personally and make life difficult for them in the future. In our experience, if a grade appeal is made in the proper way – based on facts, not emotion, and following the medical school’s procedures – that won’t happen.
Medical school faculty understand how important grades and evaluations are to students, and the fact that LUCOM has set procedures for contesting grades and evaluations shows that the school itself appreciates that grades sometimes deserve to be changed. As recent research shows, grade appeals are increasingly common in medical schools, likely because grades play a more important role when it comes to residency matches. That is because other indicators, such as COMLEX Level 1 exam scores, may have moved to pass/fail. With fewer score-based factors to consider, grades become more important in the residency evaluation process.
The key is to be able to provide support for your grade or evaluation appeal. You need to be able to show what you were expected to do for a particular assignment, exam, or clinical experience, and how you met those expectations. It probably comes as no surprise that an argument that you “need” a higher score or “believe” you “deserve” one is not likely to succeed.
You also need to make sure you pay close attention to LUCOM’s structured Academic Grievance process, which is slightly different depending on what type of grade appeal you are filing. The LLF National Law Firm’s Student Defense Team can help you make sure your appeal follows LUCOM’s requirements and that it is as clear and convincing as possible based on the facts of your particular case.
The Grade Appeal Process at LUCOM
There are slightly different procedures for academic grievances at LUCOM depending on whether you are questioning an assignment grade, a final course grade, a clinical rotation evaluation, or a clinical rotation grade. The first step, if you are considering appealing any mark you’ve received, is to understand which procedure applies in your case.
Assignment Grade Appeals
For courses that include “laboratory practical examinations or graded assessment involving standardized patients or simulation exercises,” the course syllabus should explain what the process is for making a grade appeal. These appeals need to be submitted in writing via LUCOM email, with a copy going to a separate LUCOM-designated email address.
Because there is no formal hearing process for assignment grade appeals, your written appeal is generally going to be your first and only shot at convincing the course instructor that you should have received a higher mark. Your written appeal should include everything you have to support your argument, and that argument needs to be as clear and forceful as possible. This is something the experienced attorneys from the LLF National Law Firm’s Student Defense Team do on a regular basis – we prepare persuasive written arguments for our clients that help them get the results they deserve.
Assignment grade appeals will generally be decided within 7 business days of when they are submitted.
Course Grade Appeals
For courses taken during years 1 and 2 of medical school, appeals of final course grades take a different path. The appeal must be made in writing within 5 calendar days of when you were notified that your final course grade was sent to the LUCOM registrar.
There are three levels of course grade appeals. Students should first submit the appeal to LUCOM’s Senior Executive Director of Medical Education. If the appeal is not granted at that level, it can then be made to the Senior Associate Dean of Academic Affairs. And if that appeal is not successful, a final appeal may be made to the Dean of the Medical School.
Each new level of appeal must be made in writing and must be submitted within 5 calendar days of when the decision was made at the previous level. It is important to appeal as quickly as possible, because LUCOM will not change a final course grade if more than 45 days have passed since the original grade was recorded.
Here too, the LLF National Law Firm’s Student Defense Team can help you support and draft an effective appeal that is based on the facts of your particular case.
Clinical Rotation Evaluation Appeal
Grades and comments made by a preceptor in connection with a student’s clinical rotation can also be appealed. These appeals must be made in writing to the LUCOM Office of Clinical Education within 30 days of when the grade or comments were recorded with the LUCOM registrar.
Here, too, because the appeal process is based on your written appeal, you need to make sure that the appeal is well-supported and is as convincing as possible.
Clinical Rotation Grade
The appeal of a final grade for a clinical rotation follows a process that is similar to the appeal of a final course grade described above. One difference is that the student has 30 days after the grade was recorded by the LUCOM Office of the Registrar to initiate the appeal. Each successive appeal needs to be filed in writing within 5 days of when the earlier appeal was decided. Clinical rotation grades will not be changed once 60 days have passed after the grade was initially recorded.
No matter what type of grade appeal you are considering, you need to make your written appeal as strong as possible. By working with the LLF National Law Firm’s Student Defense Team on your appeal, you will be able to take advantage of our years of experience helping students in similar situations at schools all across the country. We will help you identify and collect support for your appeal, and craft a clear and compelling argument based on that support. We’ll also make sure you don’t miss a deadline and that you understand what is happening with your appeal every step of the way.
Promotion Appeals at LUCOM
A student who fails a course and has not remediated it, or whose cumulative GPA falls below 70, may be placed on academic probation. The student continues at LUCOM, but is restricted from taking part in certain school activities and leadership positions in school organizations.
Students need to pass all first-year courses before they can take any second-year course; this requirement continues with each successive year, so that any course failure during a school year that is not remediated by the beginning of the next school year can delay your progress through LUCOM significantly.
A student who has been given the chance to remediate a course but has failed a second time will not be promoted and may have to appear before LUCOM’s Student Progress Committee to face possible dismissal from the medical school. There is a separate appeal procedure for these kinds of grade-related issues.
These appeals have to be submitted to the Office of the Dean of the medical school in writing within 72 hours of when the decision was received by the student. The Dean will then forward the appeal to the Faculty Council Chair, who will convene a committee that will review the student’s appeal.
The student’s appeal “must contain a concise, written statement of all relevant facts applicable” to the appeal. It must also note the outcome that the student is asking for.
The committee will review the appeal and will submit its decision within 7 business days of when the Dean sends the committee the written appeal. In some cases, the committee may request additional information from the student, in which case the student has 72 hours to provide it.
The committee does not finally decide the appeal. Instead, it makes a recommendation to the Dean, who can choose to accept or reject the suggestion. The Dean’s decision at this point is considered final.
The LLF National Law Firm is Here to Help
Because so much of the grade-related appeal process at LUCOM is in writing, your argument will be strengthened significantly if you are working with one of the experienced attorneys from the LLF National Law Firm’s Student Defense Team. This is the case whether you are appealing a course or clerkship grade, or whether you are facing dismissal for academic reasons. Our attorneys know what it takes to draft and support a successful appeal, and when we are on your team, you will benefit from our experience.
Let the LLF National Law Firm’s Student Defense Team help you with your grade or other academic appeal at LUCOM. The first step is to tell us more about your case so that we can explain how we are able to help. To set up a confidential consultation with one of our experienced attorneys, call us at 888.535.3686, or submit our online contact form.