Supporting evidence

Supporting evidence requirements

Applications for Special Consideration must include relevant documentation to support your request.

This evidence will help determine if your application is eligible, and the most appropriate outcome for your application.

Supporting evidence must:

identify the nature of the circumstances
include dates and/or the length of the circumstances
explain the severity and impact of the circumstances
clearly describe how the circumstances have adversely affected your capacity for effective study related to the assessment/exam
include the date(s) on which you were seen by the professional providing the evidence (if applicable)

Providing misleading or fraudulent information/documents is considered a breach of the MQ Student Code of Conduct. Breaches will be reported to the Complaints, Appeals and Misconduct Team and no Special Consideration will be granted.

Recommended supporting evidence

Various documentation types can be used as supporting evidence, however applications may not be approved if they are not supported by appropriate documentation.

The below table outlines the recommended forms of evidence based on the event type. For a full list of acceptable evidence forms please see the Special Consideration Supporting Evidence Schedule.

Circumstance	Recommended evidence type
Short Term Illness	Medical Certificate Statement of Fact* Professional Authority Form Hospital documentation eg. discharge letter
Difficult personal circumstances, eg. hardship or trauma	Statutory Declaration or Statement of Fact* Medical Certificate or Professional Authority Form stating how you were affected Official letter from relevant source/authority
Death circumstances	Statutory Declaration or Statement of Fact* stating the relationship to you Medical Certificate or Professional Authority Form stating how you were affected Other documents such as: Funeral Notice, Death Announcement, Obituary, Death Certificate
Unavoidable commitments	Official letter and/or documents from the relevant source/authority. For example: Wedding invitations accompanied by Statutory Declaration or Statement of Fact* Letter from religious leader/Elder Letter from employer stating why you cannot be released from the unexpected work commitments Letter from doctor/medical certificate Letter confirming your attendance to Jury Duty/court date
Exacerbation of ongoing illness	Medical Certificate or Professional Authority Form demonstrating the short term impact (exacerbation period) Statement of Fact*
Elite athlete or performer commitments	Official letter from the Macquarie Elite Athlete Program or appropriate organisation (at state level or higher) supporting increased training commitments or competition
Army Reservists, SES, Firefighters, and other authorised emergency services commitments	An official notice from the organiser explaining why attendance is required, eg. training or attending an emergency situation

* Statement of Fact may only be used as evidence in restricted instances. Please see the below FAQs for further information on when a Statement of Fact can or cannot be used.

What is a Professional Authority Form (PAF)

If students have consulted with a health professional due to their circumstances, ie. medical circumstances or hardship circumstances, they can consider using a Professional Authority Form (PAF) as supporting evidence once it has been completed by the relevant health professional.

Supporting evidence FAQs

A Statement of Fact can be used as supporting evidence:

for all event types other than Elite Athlete commitments,
if the event duration is 5 days or less, and
if it is used only once per assessment task (it cannot be used for the same assessment task more than once).

If your Statement of Fact does not include sufficient detail, or does not allow for your circumstances to be confirmed as serious and unavoidable, it will not be accepted. Students are recommended to consider independently corroborated documentation forms which clearly demonstrate serious and unavoidable circumstances.

You do not have to include other evidence when applying, however you may be requested to provide additional supporting evidence when your application is reviewed. If you are able to obtain recommended supporting documentation forms it is suggested to use these documents rather than a Statement of Fact.

You should provide dated evidence of your positive test result, for example a screenshot of your rapid antigen test (RAT) with file properties of the image, or a dated confirmation of your positive PCR result. Evidence lacking date confirmation is not considered appropriate supporting documentation, ie. a photo of a positive rapid antigen test by itself is not adequate documentation.

If your supporting evidence is not in English it cannot be properly assessed. This will impact whether your application is deemed to have acceptable or insufficient evidence.

The university reviews all supporting evidence provided in Special Consideration applications. Where misleading or fraudulent information/ documents are submitted, this will be reported to the Complaints, Appeals and Misconduct Unit. Any application with misleading or fraudulent information will be denied Special Consideration, and the likely outcome is 0% for the assessment task. No further consideration for that assessment task will be given should other evidence be provided.

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Special Consideration Policy Special Consideration Procedure Supporting Evidence Schedule Professional Authority Form (PAF)