How To Write A Letter

Letter to APC – Unsatisfactory Progress Risk Level 3 

Name 

Student ID 

Address 

Phone number 

Student email 

Date 

Chair 

Academic Progress Committee 

Faculty of ________________ 

To whom it may concern, 

Introductory comments: say something about the situation, and summarise what you will discuss in more detail in the letter, including what you will do to ensure success in the future. 

Main text of your letter: outline for the committee what went wrong and how you will ‘fix’ it for the future. Use the following 3 dot points to create three main paragraphs in your letter. 

What happened during the year generally (this gives the committee context)? 

How this affected your studies (the committee is more interested in this)? 

What I intend to do about it so that I don’t fail again (the committee is most interested in this)? You may wish to discuss these more detailed points (within the three main paragraphs) in your letter: 

Why you failed in previous years (the committee looks at your entire transcript)? 

Why you passed some units and failed others? 

Whether you did well on some assessment tasks and not others (e.g. assignments versus exams)? Do you have the capacity to finish your degree? 

Can you manage or eliminate the problems from the past years? or 

Can you manage your study so that the problems have less of an impact? 

Conclusion: use this as an opportunity to reinforce your reasons for staying at Monash. You may want to discuss why you are doing the degree and how committed you are to it personally. Make sure that you indicate that you have learnt the necessary lessons from the past year and that you have already begun putting your solutions into place. 

Thank the committee for their time in considering your case. If you have any final things that you think the committee should know about (eg. when you are overseas, if you can attend your hearing in person etc) you should mention it here. 

Yours Sincerely, 

Name