A deferred assessment is the opportunity to complete a final exam or final assignment after the end of a semester. A student may be eligible for a deferred assessment if they have experienced a medical, psychological or compassionate event that prevented them from completing the semester on time. A deferred assessment may be granted in the form of a deferred exam or a deferred condition.

The deferred condition may be a written test, an oral test, an assignment, a laboratory practical, or any other method of evaluation.

The deferred exam is scheduled by Scheduling Services who also supervises the deferred examinations which are two hours in length.

If you are requesting a deferred assessment such as an exam or condition, you are advised to understand the following:

For deferred assessment requests:

Review the University policy on Deferred Assessments. This can be found in Section VIII of the Undergraduate Calendar [1] and Section VIII of the Diploma Calendar [2].

When asking to defer an exam or final course work, you are requesting academic consideration [3]. You must provide a letter of request and documentation explaining your case to the Academic Review Committee. These documents must be submitted to the Program Counselling Office. When you submit your letter and documentation, you must fill out a Request for Deferred Assessment form. This form can be obtained from our office, via the News section of our website, by inquiring with your program counsellor directly, or by emailing oac.pco@uoguelph.ca. Grounds for your request must be based on medical, compassionate or psychological consideration. Decisions are made by the Academic Review Committee after the exam period ends. Please note a deferred assessment is not guaranteed. 

The request for academic consideration must be submitted to your Program Counsellor within five working days of the missed examination/course work deadline.

If a deferred assessment is granted:

On WebAdvisor, the notation *DEF* will appear beside the course (in lieu of a numeric grade) if the assessment is granted.

If you are granted a deferred exam an email will be sent to your University of Guelph email account approximately three weeks into the following semester. The deferred exam schedule will be posted by Registrarial Services [4] and on WebAdvisor at least one week prior to the start of the scheduled deferred period.

If you are granted a deferred condition an email will be sent to your University of Guelph email account approximately three weeks into the following semester, with instructions to contact your professor immediately and set up a time to either write the necessary final exam and/or hand in a final assignment on or before the deadline date noted in the Registrar's email.

If you do not have the information one week prior to the start of the scheduled deferred period, contact your Program Counsellor. It is your responsibility to complete your deferred assessment on time.

Access to CourseLink will be granted to students who have a DEF recorded on their transcript. Access to course material through CourseLink may be temporarily interrupted at the end of a course, but access will be reinstated for those students granted deferred exams. Check access at least three weeks prior to the deferred exam date and report any access issues to CourseLink Support (courselink@uoguelph.ca) immediately.

If you have any questions please contact the Program Counselling Office.