Behind in my classes.

001Open the courseroom first, not the calendar.

The instinct when you are behind is to avoid looking, and it is the single most expensive instinct available. Every week you do not look, the assumption in your head gets worse than the reality on the screen, and possibilities close that were open when you started avoiding them.

So the first task is inventory, and it is mechanical rather than emotional. For every course: what is submitted, what is outstanding, what has closed entirely, and what the gradebook says right now rather than what you fear it says. Write it down as a list. Most people discover the true position is worse than they hoped in one course and considerably better than they feared in another.

That list is what the free assessment works from. Send it, or send screenshots and the syllabi and we will build it for you. It takes about two hours and produces an answer rather than reassurance.

002Four things decide whether a term is recoverable.

The answer is arithmetic rather than attitude, and these are the inputs.

• What the late policy actually says. A flat per-day deduction leaves value in a submission for a surprisingly long window; a hard zero after a stated number of days does not. Most people have never read this paragraph, and it changes the correct decision completely.
• How much of the grade is still unearned. A course with the heaviest objects still ahead is far more recoverable than one where they have passed, even if the current percentage looks worse.
• How many weeks remain, against how much is outstanding. This is where terms are honestly lost, and it is a division rather than a judgment.
• Whether your institution's withdrawal deadline has passed, because a withdrawal and a failed attempt have very different consequences for your record and your funding.

003The conversation to have with your instructor.

Have it, and have it before the deadline rather than after. This is the highest-return unpaid action available to anyone in this situation, and it is the one most people skip out of embarrassment. Instructors have discretion far more often than syllabi suggest, and that discretion is much easier to exercise before a deadline passes than afterwards, when it becomes a policy exception rather than an arrangement.

Keep it short and specific. State the situation in one sentence without extended justification, say exactly what you are asking for with a date attached, and say what you will deliver. A message asking for a week on one assignment with a named date is answerable; a long apology is not. If you would rather show us the draft before sending it, we will read it and say nothing about the fee, because there is not one for that.

004What happens after the assessment.

If the term is savable, the plan is built backwards from what remains and priced against it, and it is nearly always narrower than people expect. Frequently the recommendation is to cover one course completely and let another go, rather than spreading thin support across everything and rescuing nothing. Where the outstanding work is a repeating weekly component, coverage runs through weekly work; where it is a stack of individual items, they are priced one by one at the assignment desk.

If it is not savable, you get told, with the reasoning. That answer costs nothing and we would rather give it than take money for a rescue that arithmetic says cannot work. In that case the useful conversation is about the next term: what caused this one to collapse, which weeks were always going to be impossible, and what to have in place before it happens again.

Questions.

I am six weeks behind. Is that too far?

It depends on the length of the term and on your late policy far more than on the number of weeks. Six weeks into a fifteen-week term with a flat deduction policy is frequently recoverable; six weeks into an eight-week term with hard zeros usually is not. Send the syllabi and gradebook screenshots and you get the arithmetic within two hours.

Will you tell me if it is hopeless?

Yes, with the reasoning, and it costs nothing. We would rather give that answer than accept money for a rescue the arithmetic rules out. Where a withdrawal is still open and would cost you less than a failed attempt, that is the recommendation you will get, even though it is the one that earns us nothing.

Should I talk to my instructor first?

Yes, before contacting us and before any deadline passes. It is the highest-return free action in this entire situation. Instructors have discretion more often than syllabi imply, and it is far easier to grant before a deadline than after. Send us the draft message if you want a second pair of eyes; there is no charge for reading it.

Can you take over everything at once?

We can, and it is usually the wrong plan. Support spread across four failing courses tends to rescue none of them, because each still needs your involvement and your attention is the scarce resource. Covering one or two completely, and withdrawing or accepting the loss on the rest, produces better outcomes and costs less.

What does catch-up work cost?

The assessment is free and always will be. Beyond that it is priced against what actually remains, itemized by course and by component, so you can fund the rescue of one course rather than all of them. Figures come back with the assessment inside two hours, and plenty of people take the assessment and act on it themselves.