8 Smart and Believable Excuses for Skipping Classes

Last Updated on August 9, 2022 by David Shaw

There are just some days might you feel a little off and want to call it a day off from classes, but still have to bear the responsibilities of attending lectures to not affect your grade. Regardless, even if we made it to class we wouldn’t be as productive anyways and feel like time slows down especially if the lectures are boring.

Also check out Can Skipping Class Get You in Trouble? What to Do Before & After

The best excuses you can give often involve a mix of novelty and minimal loose ends so you don’t get exposed by your own words when being questioned about the legitimacy of your excuses.

Enough talk, we’ve compiled a list of excuses to skip classes in college that are believable, raise very minimal suspicion, and are not easily questionable if you just need it sometimes to avoid getting in trouble with your instructor.

1. Jury Duty

Jury duty can be called upon on almost anyone including college students. Appearing for jury duty is actually a thing and non-questionable since it can be totally random. I’ve known friends in college who were told to show up for jury duty through phone calls, which is a perfect excuse if you’re asked to provide proof.

In some states, escaping jury duty service can have bad consequences. So if you were to use this excuse, your instructors won’t likely ask further questions and excuse you for an important day in class.

2. Celebrating Religious/Cultural Holidays

If you didn’t know, celebrating a religious or cultural holiday of yours is usually able to let you be excused for being granted an off from class. Many universities explicitly make it clear that students can request for absence if they need a day or two off to celebrate their cultural holiday.

For the lists of all public holidays in colleges, check out our article on How Many Days of Holiday Are There in US Colleges? Lists of All Holidays.

If a religious holiday lands near some days where you want the long weekend, then you probably can easily get a green light from your instructor. Anyways, it can also be convenient since you don’t necessarily have to provide proof of your cultural identity, and your professor’s probably won’t be very much bothered by it either.

3. Dentist Appointment

Saying you need to show up for a dentist appointment can be a handy one because it can also be very spontaneous and non-formal. You could break a tooth or chipped and say it gave you a large enough of an inconvenience, and they probably won’t be able to tell the difference.

4. Bad Weather/Minor Natural Disasters

Throughout the nation, there can be natural disaster occurrences like hurricanes, bad storms, or small quakes depending on which part you reside in. Especially if you’re living off campus, these can be believable and random excuses that are out of your control, which can avoid suspicion or questions from your instructors if you need a call a day off absent.

5. Contracting Covid

Saying you tested positive for Covid is the single-handedly most useful excuse you can use ever since the start of the coronavirus 2020 pandemic. Though it can be a convenient and effective excuse to easily give yourself a week off from classes, you should be very cautious not to exploit this use of this excuse.

Since there will inevitably be a handful of students using covid as an excuse, you should know to use this excuse wisely like when there’s a spike in cases near your school county or state. Plus, since covid precautions to isolate yourself for a minimum of 3-5 days is still practical, you’re potentially trailing behind a week of lecture materials. So if you want to use this excuse, make sure to target the weekends which should include Saturday and Sunday to your advantage.

6. Babysit A Child

Well, you probably have a niece or nephew to qualify for using this excuse when appropriate. It is absolutely believable that there can be days when the parents of your younger relative are not available and need someone to suddenly babysit their children for a day or few hours.

7. Transport Stolen

Stolen transport or vehicle can be good only in some cases. You could further elaborate that you were busy filing reports at the police station or dealing with the insurance company. It could be believable if you know what you’re saying and doing.

Besides, you can recover from this excuse next time by saying it has been already been resolved or found.

8. Family Emergency

Although we least recommend using a family emergency as an excuse to skip classes since it can be morally wrong to do so.

However a family emergency excuse may sound effective, but you also have to remember that they are among the most exploited excuses student use with their instructors.

It is also a notoriously lame excuse, especially with faking the ‘funeral’ wildcard excuse of a family is not the way to escape a mere class attendance duty. Besides, your instructors will definitely doubt you for calling in absent on a coincidental occurrence on a very special class day. We suggust only using this very rarely and as a last resort, because most universites instructors are probably not buying it since some students misuse this more than once and blow their cover.

If you want to use this, just make sure you have solid backing to your loose ends, or you’ll just end up putting yourself in trouble and adding more guilt to your back.

What Happens When You Skipped Classes and Missed a Homework

There can be times where you might want to skip a class to avoid a quiz or homework that you’re not well-prepared for. Some instructors might not let you off the hook and won’t let you make up for any assignments or quizzes you missed, and now that’s got you wondering, will it affect your grades?

Firstly, always appeal politely with an email to your instructors and don’t send out those emails especially on resting hours because it might just annoy your instructor. Often times, your instructor will accomodate your requests for a retake or offer other options to make up for your lost grades if you ask nicely.

If after all the effort of your appeals still dont work out, then you’ll have to resort to swallowing the hard pill. Check out this article on Is It Ok to Miss or Skip One Assignment? What to Do and Avoid.