2.7.2 Suspension from Study on Medical/Personal Grounds
You may, in serious medical, personal or other circumstances, apply through your Personal Tutor, the Chaplain/Wellbeing and Welfare Officer, or the Senior Tutor/Academic Registrar to the Academic Progress Committee (APC) – a small internal College committee which includes the Chaplain/Wellbeing and Welfare Officer and Senior Tutor – for permission to suspend your student status for a specified period, usually one year.
In exceptional circumstances, a request to suspend a second year will be heard. APC will not normally agree to the repetition of completed terms; and will not agree to a suspension based solely on the ground that you are or feel ill-prepared for University examinations.
In cases of ill-health a medical certificate in support of the request to suspend is required from the College Doctors. A student whose request for a suspension of study is granted does not need to put a case to APC, but one whose request is turned down may do so. At the end of the period of suspension, the College will require another medical certificate from the College Doctors (informed by reports from the clinicians who have been treating you while suspended and/or from health professionals the College Doctors have consulted), confirming you are fit to resume study.
APC may require that some academic work take place in the run-up to a resumption of study, such as submitting an academic plan, or other written work assigned by tutors, or preparing to sit a returning collection identical to that which is being set to the year group you will be joining. This academic component is intended to help you get ready to resume full-time study once you are well, and does not reflect any lack of good academic standing.
The Senior Tutor/Academic Registrar will write to you to convey the decision of APC with regard to the request to suspend, outline any conditions for return, and confirm the arrangements agreed for access to University facilities, services and support, communication with College while suspended, and other details as required.
The College will consider sympathetically a request to return into residence early, though normally not earlier than 0th Week of term, in order that you be able to settle in to academic work. Given sufficient notice, it may be possible to provide accommodation, for which you would normally be charged. Any early return into residence will require the certification of fitness to study to be brought forward accordingly.