With exams right around the corner, and the Oct. 4 deadline to commit major changes to their schedules months past, some students may find themselves struggling to make the grade. However, for students with extenuating circumstances, there may still be hope.

According to Michael Bachman, associate director of Student Affairs Counseling Center, there are exceptions. Students who experience unfortunate situations, such as serious medical conditions, psychological conditions or hardships that might cause the students to perform poorly in a course or on a major exam, have the option to drop a specific course or even withdraw an entire semester.

“[It needs to be] something significant like that, that might naturally affect somebody’s ability to complete assignments or exams,” he said.

Heath Tilley, a sophomore in physics, said he decided to withdraw an entire semester from his sophomore year when his mother died.

“I definitely was not able to focus on studying,” he said.

Tilley said the overall process of removing the semester was easy and expedient, taking only about a week. However, he said he had heard of other students having a more difficult time with the procedure.

“It wasn’t too terrible for me because of the reason,” he said. “I talked to the counselors and they helped me out with it.”

Tilley said he didn’t have to talk to individual professors. He said he talked to Registration and Records and had to have the dean of his college sign the paperwork.

Tilley said the ability to withdraw that semester “helped considerably.”

According to Bachman, students who wish to merely drop a particular course do not necessarily need to go through the Counseling Center. However, he said the professor might want an opinion from the Counseling Center as to whether the circumstance warrants a drop.

“When you talk about [dropping] a course, an instructor decides in their own course whether they might give a student consideration,” he said.

Bachman said eventually the dean’s office of the specific college must approve the drop.

“[A student] can go to their dean and ask for some consideration to drop a class because they think the grade was due to those unforeseen, unavoidable extenuating circumstances,” he said.

Philip Dail, director of advising and admissions for the College of Textiles, said he recently dealt with a student who requested to drop a class and when he asked the student for documentation, the request was suddenly dropped.

“This is a serious thing to have anything done now,” Dail said.

According to Bachman, the dean might consider the student’s attendance, grades prior to illness, documentation from a doctor and a counselor’s opinion while evaluating the student’s case.

Bachman said the Counseling Center helps students clarify the documentation their cases might require prior to taking them to the dean.

“But if the student has independent documentation from an off-campus provider that looks like it will be sufficient, they might take that documentation to the dean,” he said.

Dail said he advises students to think about taking an incomplete in a course before dropping it.

“If they have been doing the work until the last two weeks, then certainly an incomplete is far more preferable than dropping,” he said. “An incomplete you [can] go back and finish.”

Bachman said once the final deadlines pass at the beginning of semester, students need to have extenuating circumstances to make major changes to their records.

“With that much time — six weeks — students should know about their situation, unless something unfortunate happens,” Dail said.

Dail said he thinks students need to take advantage of the Counseling Center as soon as something begins to affect their lives.

“These things would be much easier on the [students] if they would go earlier when they realize something is happening,” he said.