Finals time is stressful for everyone, but it’s even worse when you’re sick. This past semester, Stern senior Eliana Pasternak caught the flu during finals, forcing her to make-up one of her exams. Upon entering the classroom to take the exam, she had to pay a fee of $20.
In order to make-up a final exam, students are required to file a Final Make-Up Request form. Included with this form, students must attach a doctor’s note or a written explanation of another emergency. What most people don’t know, however, is that students are also required to pay a fee of $20 per exam. Though this make-up fee is not a new policy, students are just beginning to learn about it now.
According to Dean Orlian, this policy has been in existence for the past twenty years and is intended for students with unforeseen emergencies (such as medical emergencies) or other compelling situations. Students facing such circumstances were in the past required to fill out the Request Form, provide a doctor’s note if applicable, and receive approval from the administration to reschedule their final exams. Students were also in the past required to pay a fee to take the make-up test. The only aspect of the policy that has changed within the last two years is the appointment of a new faculty advisor who coordinates the rescheduling of make-up finals with the students, and the raise in price for make-up exams from $15.00 to $20.00 per exam.
After being hit by a car, Orly Benaderet, SCW 13’, suffered a concussion and had to miss five of her exams. She was then informed that she would have to pay $20 per missed exam. “You only know about the policy if you need to know about the policy,” explained Benaderet. “Of course, at the end of the day, we’re going to pay the fee, because if we don’t, we’re going to fail the class. But this would be a good policy to know about beforehand so that students aren’t caught off guard.” The fact that students are only told about the fee in the middle, or shortly after, an emergency adds additional stress to an already stressful situation. “It would have been helpful to have read this somewhere before,” said Benaderet. ”Then it would have sounded familiar when they told me I had to pay.”
Students are not only surprised by the make-up fee. Many students are outraged by the policy. “No one wants to miss a final,” Pasternak explained. “It’s obviously less than ideal.” She feels that having to pay for the exam after already providing legitimate documentation explaining the circumstances makes students feel like they are being penalized for being sick. “By making students pay for an exam that they have a legitimate excuse to miss, it makes it seem like the school is providing an extra service by administering a mandatory exam.”
Additionally, students question why they are being charged per exam when many have multiple exams to make up. With the increase of $5 per exam, students rightly wonder where the extra money is going.
Shani San Solo, SCW 13’, was forced to miss two finals when she had pneumonia and could barely get out of bed. At the time, the administration informed her of the make-up fee, but she did not even think about it because she was so ill. At the end of the day, “money was not changing my decision; I had to take my finals,” explained San Solo. Though she understands the fee partially pays for the proctor, she feels that charging students for each test is “excessive.”
The administration maintains that the goal of the make-up fee is not to penalize, but rather an administrative fee to compensate for the time-consuming process of a make-up exam. Said Dean Orlian, “the fee may have been instituted to help defray the costs associated with the production, proctoring and administration of final makeup exams.”
Regardless of reason, Stern students should be informed of this policy.