Guidance for students
Individual Mitigating Circumstances (IMCs) are the conditions which temporarily prevent you from undertaking assessment or significantly impair your performance in assessment: as such, the measure of their severity is not about impact on you, but impact on your assessment. The IMC procedures described on this website and in the documents linked to it apply to all students registered for a Bath qualification, including those based away from the University.
IMCs are different from ongoing or long-term conditions, such as long-term illness or disability, for which you should seek support from the Disability Advice team.
It is in your interests, wherever possible, to supply as much evidence to support your case as you can. If you are suffering from an illness you should provide a doctor's note outlining the nature of the illness. Other circumstances should also be supported by relevant evidence. It is your responsibility to ensure that this evidence is supplied together with the IMC report form. You should also be as clear as possible about the timescales within which your assessments were affected. Your IMCs will only be taken into account for assessments specified on the form.
Key Points to Remember
- Do not delay, for example by waiting until you receive your results. There are strict timeframes within which to make your case and you are strongly advised to make yourself familiar with these. The University is not obliged under the provisions of its Regulations to consider your request if it is made outside these timescales. IMC requests must be submitted no more than THREE days after the affected assessment. If you know something is coming up that might affect your assessment, such as an operation, you should notify your Director of Studies in accordance with the guidance provided by your Department or School at the earliest possible opportunity. The University appreciates that it can sometimes be difficult, for personal or cultural reasons, to bring your circumstances to the attention of others, but failure to submit a claim within three days of the affected assessment is very likely to result in rejection of your request. Do not 'wait and see' what your result is before submitting an IMC claim: by then it almost certainly be too late for your claim to be considered.
- Provide as much detail and evidence as possible.
- Ensure that your contact details on Registration On-Line (ROL) are up to date.
IMCs and supporting medical evidence
If you claim an IMC on the grounds of a medical condition, you will need to provide written evidence from an appropriately qualified person to confirm that you have the condition you claim.
Students in Bath should note that the NHS HealthCare Centre (also known as the Walk-In-Centre) is NOT able to issue these sick notes.
HealthCare Centre staff have been advised that they must turn students away and refer them back to the University Medical Centre if they are presenting for a sick note and are registered with the Medical Centre at the University. The Medical Centre does have appointments available, as well as always operating an urgent list, and can offer sick notes retrospectively where appropriate.
Please do not go to the NHS HealthCare Centre for supporting medical evidence but come to the University Medical Centre if you are registered there. If you are registered elsewhere, please go to your own GP for medical evidence if the Medical Centre is unable to see you as a temporary resident.
Other sources of information/related links
- Your programme handbook for an account of the procedures applying within your Department
- Your Director of Studies
- The Students' Union Advice and Representation Centre website run by the Student Union
- The Disability Advice team
- What are Individual Mitigating Circumstances (IMCs)? (pdf)
- IMCs - summary for students (pdf)
- IMC Report Form (MS Word document to be used when you claim an IMC)
- Questions and answers about IMCs