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[rekishi]

In my experience this sort of student is attempting to take advantage of your good nature. I will bet you my youngest child (please take her) that the student will ask for an incomplete at the end of the semester and continue to drag out the work for weeks on end.

It really sounds like this student is too busy to be registered for classes. Tell the student to drop the class and come back next semester when they have their life in order. It may sound brutal, but as an educator you are not expected to bend over backwards for every student who has problems in their life (unless they have a note from the university stating they have special needs).

On your syllabus you should clearly establish boundaries on late work and life problems. For example, late work is penalized and will not be accepted more than one week late. Doing this will protect you from flakes like this student.

[infopri]

Something bio_prof_ said on the "Heretical Rants" thread might be appropriate here:

I'm sorry, but you can't redeem your problems in life for class points.

[spork]

Can you detect a pattern?

The pattern I detect is laziness and incompetence.  My recommendation?  The student drops the class or gets an F.

[mudskipper]

There's so much good advice here already that I want to see what people think about a related issue:

It's hard to sympathize with a student who can't turn work in on time when there are so many ways to turn things in. I sometimes wonder if that's not part of the problem sometimes, in fact. I had one class where some students would use the digital dropbox in Blackboard, some would bring their printed papers to class, others would email them to me, and still others would give them to the department secretary to put in my box.

In trying to be convenient for everyone, I created a situation that was a complete PITA for me. Now, I require all students turn in their papers electronically to Blackboard's digital dropbox. They are completely responsible for getting them uploaded properly and on time. We do a practice upload in the first week of the term for quiz credit, and after that, I never have problems with students having excuses for not turning in work.

Do you think that students have too many choices when it comes to turning in work, and that that adds to the excuses?

[helpful]

The only problem with using something like Blackboard is that, because I don't like correcting or giving comments on the digital paper, I have to print out every paper and write comments on it.

By the way, at my institution incompletes mean papers have to be handed in by a certain date. And it costs money for the student to get an incomplete, another disincentive to get an incomplete. If the papers aren't handed in by the certain date, then they get an F and have to retake the class.

[concordancia]

This seems a little extreme to me, but then I have students who claim they got confused so they didn't turn it in any way. I am not sure there is a cause and effect to the excuses, but at some point I have to balance my convenience and theirs.

Learning to grade electronically is an acquired taste. Since I don't have a TV, I can no longer pop a DVD into the computer while I grade:(

My students have told me that some of their professors have then turn things in both online and as a hard copy. Personally, I went over to electronic submissions
1) for deadlines: they now have until 5pm on Friday for any class with weekly assignments and 10 minutes prior to class for essays (I even let them know that the whole point is there is no excuse to miss half of class to finish the essay that was always meant to be turned in at the beginning of class).
2) even though students can print for free on campus, many claimed that their printer at home wasn't working or the one they tried to print from at the library was out of paper or...
3) My comments are legible when typed.
4) That much less paper to recycle.