As an instructor at two different universities, I’ve gotten my fair share of emails asking for extensions. 

I’m generally a very easy going teacher. Usually when I teach labs, as long as you do the work, and I can see you’re putting in effort, I’ll give you a full grade even if your answers aren’t entirely correct. And at the end of lecture, if you’ve tried your best, done all the extra credit, and still aren’t doing too great, I will usually bump up your grade. It’s not very difficult to pass my classes. But, I still get a handful of people who end up with an F due to them not turning in assignments. 

In this mini series, I’m going to cover the different ways to not ask for an extension, using examples that students have tried on me. Today, we’ll discuss timing. 

Do not wait until the due date

If the deadline is Sunday at 11:59PM, I have had quite a few students email me on Sunday night, with their (not valid) excuse for why they can’t complete the assignment on time and need an extension. While I’ll go into more details for excuses next week, I will give a brief one here.

I had a student reach out Sunday at 10:49PM during the first week saying that the proctoring program wasn’t working on her computer and she needed an extension. Monday when I saw her email, I checked to see if the site had been down, which it hadn’t been. Sometimes, with certain browsers, the proctoring system will be blocked due to a pop-up issue. This could have easily been resolved if she had let me know during the entire rest of the week that the assignment had been given, or if she had done the program simulation (which is there to make sure issues like this are avoided). 

There are problems with waiting till the due date that make me less likely to be sympathetic. 

It shows me that you put off this work until the very last minute, meaning that any technical issues could have been avoided if you had done it during the week. There was a student who let me know mid-week it wasn’t working, and neither the program support nor the college support could figure out why, so I just had her do unproctored exams the rest of the semester. I’m very willing to help you out, if you show me that you’re not just waiting until the last second. 

It shows me that you don’t really care to succeed in the class if you’re putting it off and then emailing your professor late on a Sunday night an hour before the assignment is due. In contrast, I have a student this semester who does everything for the class the day the assignments open, which automatically shows me that (yes, he is trying to get the work out of the way) he wants to succeed in the class and do well. And so far, he has an A on his own accord.

Do not wait until a day or two after the due date

One would figure that this would be a given, but I have had a handful who would reach out to me after the deadline, sometimes a few days after, which is insane to me. 

In one instance, the class had ended that Sunday, so I finished grading on Monday morning, and sent out an announcement that they should check over their grades, make sure there weren’t any discrepancies, and to get back to me before 5PM, since I was going to submit the grades later that night. After seeing no responses, I submitted everything about 9PM Monday since I’d gotten sidetracked with something else.

On Wednesday, I got an email from two students in that class (who had a history of not turning in assignments) with quite a funny excuse (you’ll get to read about that next week). It was definitely not a valid excuse, but the damage had already been done. I responded that I had let everyone know I was going to be submitting grades Monday night per the notification everyone received, and that is what I had done. 

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In almost every class I’ve had, there’s been at least one or two who have had timing issues like this when they asked for an extension. No one quite as bad as the two who waited until after the class had completely ended to tell me about their excuse for why they needed an extension (which, even if it had been valid, would have been very difficult to give). 

As someone who’s recently out of school, it really shocked me the first few times I got these. When I was a student, I would have let the professor know about any issues as soon as possible. If I’m sick with the flu on Tuesday, I’ll let them know and tell them that I’ll try to get it all done by Sunday. If I tell them on the due date that I was sick with the flu this week and need an extension, I don’t think it would go over nearly as well as it would have if I had reached out as soon as the issue arose. 

If you’re wondering how you can get your professor to give you an extension, do not wait until the deadline (or past the deadline). Let them know as soon as the problem happens, whether technical, physical, or any other kind, so that they are aware you may be struggling and can help you overcome it. 

Next week, we’ll look at excuses not to use when asking for an extension. 

Let me know if you have any comments/questions below or you can contact me here! I love hearing from you!

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