Scheduling Difficulties

Unable to sit exam at set time

You should ensure that you are available to sit exams during the entire exam period, as holidays and normal work and carers' commitments are not considered valid reasons for missing a final exam.

However, academic consideration can be granted in serious or extenuating circumstances which are beyond your control and which significantly impair your ability to sit an exam or complete other assessment tasks.

Applications for academic consideration will be considered on the basis of medical grounds, compassionate grounds and/or extentuating cirucmstances, including but not limited to:

• significant and unplanned carer's responsibilities,
• religious observance,
• legal commitments,
• military service,
• one-off unusual work commitments,
• accidents or natural disasters,
• participation in sporting events at state, national or international level,
• participation in major cultural events, or
• unavailability of student professional experience opportunity.

Applications must be lodged via SOLS no later than one week following the release of the final exam timetable. You should read the Student Academic Consideration Policy before submitting an application.

Religious considerations

If you are unable to take exams on a Saturday for religious reasons, you should apply for academic consideration as explained above.

Note that the Imam of the General Islamic Centre has advised that:

1. if a Muslim student finds fasting during the exam period impairs his or her judgement, the student can break fasting and re-fast on a later suitable date, and

2. it is possible to combine the noon and afternoon prayer if exams finish after sunset.

Direct clashes

You may find that two of your exams are scheduled at exactly the same time on the same day, which is considered to be a direct clash. In most cases the Academic Registrar's Division (ARD) will contact you to advise you of the arrangements which will be made to deal with the clash. If you are concerned that you have not heard from ARD you should contact the Exams Team as soon as possible after the release of the timetable with details of the clash.

Your Subject Coordinator may require that you sit the two exams on the one day, under quarantine conditions. This means that you will sit one exam in the morning and the other in the afternoon, and be supervised during the lunch break. 

Two exams on one day

The University gives priority when scheduling exams to avoid any students having to sit exams for two subjects on one day. However it is not possible to eliminate this altogether, and approximately 10% of students in any given exam period will have two exams scheduled on the one day. This is not considered to be a clash situation, and under normal circumstances exams will not be rescheduled.

Other timetable difficulties

You will be able to apply for an adjustment to your exam timetable if your provisional timetable shows that you will have:

• MORE than two exams scheduled on any one day,
• MORE than three exams scheduled on two (2) consecutive days, or
• exams scheduled at different exam centres (campuses) on any one day.

You should complete a Request for Alternative Examination Sitting form and have it approved by your Subject Coordinator. Completed forms should be returned to the Exams Team no later than one week following the release of the final exam timetable.

If approved, an adjustment will be made to your exam timetable and you will be contacted by the Exams Team with further details.