Thanks for the suggestion
As far as I understand it, there is an academic appeals committee which will ultimately be the ones to take this on and decide if it has merit. On reviewing their guidelines, I think there is but I will need to tailor the language of the letter a little to better reflect what the grounds are. I don't think the committee can be approached on an informal basis, however.
Maybe I should clarify with my own experience: my university and my faculty in particular had an appeal/review process for these sorts of matters. At the same time, they had an ombudsperson who worked in parallel with the formal process. The ombudsperson's job wasn't to act as advocate or mediator in disputes, but was to safeguard fairness in university administration. If a person felt unfairly treated by the university's adminstrative processes, they could go to the ombudsperson, who wouldn't so much overrule the university's decisions but would try to resolve any issues of unfairness in the process. Consultations with the ombudsperson were confidential and wouldn't be shared with anyone outside the ombudsperson's office without the student's permission.
I know that a number of schools have some sort of ombudsperson's office; I don't know if your sister's does, though.
Thanks again though, you actually made me think to look to the specific language of the appeals process, which should help me better put the appeal across in writing
No problem. But yes - read through the school's rules on this stuff. In my case, it was in the academic calendar; I'm not sure where your sister's school puts it, but it should be accessible somewhere.
It'd suck for her to find out that she missed some opportunity for appeal or alternative dispute resolution or the like because she didn't know about some deadline or form.