During semester
Special consideration, hurdles, late penalties, academic integrity and AI, exams and results, and dropping or failing a subject.
Overview · Getting started · Enrolling · During semester · International · Help
Sick or something happened: special consideration
- Apply no later than 4 business days after the due date or the class you missed. A late application still has to be in before results come out.
- One online form covers short extensions, extensions and special consideration.
- Apply by the deadline even if your documents aren't ready yet. For illness or bereavement, the evidence form is the Health Professional Report (HPR).
- What you might get: an extension, a deferred or special assessment or exam, a replacement class, or an exemption or re-weighting for a hurdle or small task. Each case is looked at on its own.
Alternative exam arrangements, supplementary assessment and fee remission are separate processes.
Who can apply and what documents
Hurdles
Some subjects have hurdles: a task or requirement you have to pass on its own. Fail one and you fail the subject, even if your total is over 50. The grade is NH and your transcript shows 49.
Each subject's hurdles are in its assessment on the Handbook page, and on this site's subject pages.
Late submission penalties
There's no university-wide late penalty. Each subject sets its own and puts it in the subject outline, and it has to be the same for everyone in that subject. Check the outline before a deadline.
Academic integrity and AI
- Generative AI (ChatGPT and the like): your subject coordinator decides whether and how you can use it, and it can differ between subjects and tasks. Read the instructions for each assessment, and acknowledge any AI use the way they ask.
- Plagiarism: handing in someone else's words, ideas, code or images without citing them. Reusing your own earlier work without permission counts too.
- Collusion, breaking exam or assessment rules, and using technology you weren't allowed to (or didn't disclose) are breaches as well.
- Contract cheating: someone else doing any part of your work, paid or not. Uploading your assessments to sites like Studocu or Course Hero, or doing work for another student, counts too. It's illegal in Australia.
Be wary of 'tutoring' or 'assignment help' groups on Instagram, WeChat or Telegram, and QR codes handed out around campus. Anything that offers to do your work for you is contract cheating.
Being asked to talk through your work isn't an accusation. If there is an allegation, you're told, you see the evidence and you get to respond. Misconduct can have serious consequences for your studies.
Exams and results
- Exam timetable: your own (date, time, venue and seat) shows on the my.unimelb home page once it's released. The release date is on the exam dates page.
- Have on-campus exams? You must be in Melbourne for the whole exam period, supplementary exams included, so don't book a flight home too early.
- Results: see them in my.unimelb after the release date. The dates are on the official results page.
- Think a mark is wrong? Ask for feedback on it first. Then you can request a review within 10 business days of the result being published, with your reason. A review isn't automatic, and the mark can go up, stay the same or go down.
Dropping a subject
- Before the census date: drop it for free. You don’t pay and it’s not on your transcript.
- After census, up to the last day to withdraw without fail: you still pay, and your transcript shows WD (withdrawn). It doesn’t affect your WAM.
- After that: it’s a fail.
Past the last day to withdraw, you can only ask for a late withdrawal in special circumstances, within 12 months of the end of the semester.
Domestic students: drop before census and the subject doesn’t go on your HELP debt.
International students: there’s no refund after census, and dropping below your planned load can affect your visa. Ask Stop 1 before you drop anything.
Every subject has its own dates. They’re on the subject’s Handbook page. You drop subjects in my.unimelb, under Enrolment.
If you fail a subject
- A fail gives no credit points, but its mark still counts in your WAM.
- Compulsory or core subject: you have to take it again. Elective: take it again or pick a different subject. Repeating means doing every assessment and meeting attendance again.
- Failing a compulsory subject, or 50% or more of your points in a semester, puts you “at risk”. Failing the same compulsory subject again can lead to a meeting about your progress. The uni offers support first.
- In your last two semesters, with 12.5 points or less left to finish, a mark of 40–49 may get you a supplementary assessment.
- If illness or something else affected you, apply for special consideration, and talk to Stop 1.
- International students: repeating can mean studying longer than your CoE. Check with Stop 1 early.
Rules here are from the University of Melbourne student website and can change. Check there or ask Stop 1 before you decide anything.