Was this student justified in raising hell?

[HYHYBT]

Yeah. Hence why you're not allowed to use the bathroom during an exam

I've *never* taken an exam (except *possibly* the SAT; I can't remember it too well) where using the restroom wasn't allowed. I did, though, have a class at UGA where te instructor got tired of people asking and wrote "the answers are in the bathroom" on the board.

But who's to say that the professor didn't have all the information that the student needed in the syllabus and the student just decided not to look over it. And the professor very well might have gone over the exam information in class - numerous times, even - and the student either wasn't in class or wasn't paying attention. There's simply no information in the OP to say one way or the other.

Which is why I've specifically been saying *if* it wasn't. If it *was* made clear in those ways, then expecting an exception without even asking makes no sense, and of course he shouldn't have gotten one. But *only if.*

You say that people need to get over themselves as far as interrupting the test zone but how is wanting a quiet, disruption free testing atmosphere (something you’d expect for the most part) more unreasonable than expecting the teacher to change his rules just for you? That honestly seems more out of line to me.

Coming in late, picking up a test, sitting down, and beginning to take it are no more distracting than getting up, turning in the completed test, and leaving. Students were apparently allowed to do the latter, rather than being made to sit quietly until everyone was done. Therefore their doing so was not considered an unreasonable burden on their classmates.

There seems to be a lot of assumption here that the rule wasn’t stated ahead of time. I can’t count the number of times people don’t read their syllabus or ask questions they should have known the answer to if they had listened.

Nope. All the assumption has been on the other side. Y'all are declaring, without qualification, that his not being allowed to begin the test late is reasonable, fair, etc. I'm arguing that it is not fair *unless* that rule was spelled out beforehand. That says nothing about whether, in fact, it *was* spelled out or not, because we do not have that information. I am not really making an assumption either way; you are.

All the classes I’ve been in have had that kind of attitude as far as not coming in for the final late.

And almost none I've had have done it that way. I've had exactly *one* where you couldn't take a test if you were late, and one where you weren't allowed to enter the room even on non-test days once the lecture had started, though that was 18 years ago and I don't remember how tests were handled.

[Eisa]

Every single test in college, just about, that I've gone to, the professor has stated...they don't care if you're late, really...but NO ONE is allowed to take the test after the first person has left [without a damn good excuse]. If no one finishes for 45 minutes, well...you got lucky then!

Test dates are printed on the syllabus and you're informed ahead of time. I've never been in a class where we weren't...particularly when it came to the final. And we are also informed multiple times of when the final is, how it is different from normal class time, and what room it is in.

He should have informed the professor that he had work and couldn't get off early [if that was in fact the case]. Maybe then he could have taken it.

[HYHYBT]

...and I've *never* had a class with such a rule. And it's not one you would expect if you've never encountered it before.