All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs

the evil, the only crime is pride. Sophocles. Mistakes are ingrained in the human psyche, but our saving grace, our taste of the divine is the inherent ability to admit our mistakes, and to stand up and do something about themI, Brian Phillips having allowed my grades in school to slip to inexcusable levels have committed a mistake. A mistake is an unavoidable and inevitable thing for all humans, and we pretty much are all prone to make one during the course of this life on earth. Unfortunately I came upon a mistake during the most important years of my life, College, but yet, this could be the saving grace, and divine inspiration to get over this hump, and continue down the path of success, all resulting from this mistake. This mistake has humbled me, and showed me how a life without finishing college would look like, this mistake has also revealed to me the importance of just completing anything in general that you start in life. I intend to correct this mistake by observing why I have arrived to this mistake, and by organizing a plan to deal with this mistake.

Camden most dangerous U.S City Again,-Nbc10 news. This was the headline I was reading while riding on a bus to Boston to attend the Berklee college of Music. I was still in disbelief that I was going to attend Berklee, it seemed like I was still in a dream that was too good to be true. My whole childhood I was told that I would amount to being nothing, because I was from the city of CamdenCamden New jersey, (my home city) which holds a 19 percent unemployment rate, 2,300 violent crimes for every 10,000 residents, held the record for the United states most dangerous nation in 2003, 2004, 2008, 2011, 2013, Poorest city in America in 2011, 2013, at times convinced me that I would probably not amount to anything, but getting into Berklee College of music gave me new life, new hope, however the burden of the past, the expectations of being a failure, of being nothing still held on in the back of my subconscious on that bus to Berklee..My Berklee experience started off with me having one year in the dorms, and my grandmother used a loan for my first year to pay for the berklee experience. After that first Year I became homeless, I informed multiple staff at Berklee that I was homeless, and Berklee gave me and increase in financial aid, but they did not give me not an ounce

of scholarship moneyI decided to still try to complete school even in the midst of my homelessness, coming from Camden I was used to roughing it out, I thought I would be able to get by without much trouble, but then reality hit me. I started missing classes, I started failing courses that I should be able to easily pass, even my professors could not understand why I was failing the courses I was failing. I was going south, and it seemed like no one was there to help, I wanted to speak up, but it seemed like no one could understand, that I had to hop from one friends house to another, or at times I had to sleep in a practice room, while trying to still go to school at one of the best Music schools in the nation Why dont you just go home and get your financial situation straight before you come to berklee? This was one financial directors response to my pleads, She wanted me to go home to the city of death, where Music is dead, where poverty, and homelessness, and despair is rampant, where my own family does not care for me. What sense does she make? Leaving Camden to escape the darkness has allowed me to see that there is hope, what sense does it make to return to the diaspora to look for hope? I am trying to break the pattern of failure, and

despair that is accustomed to my city and my family, not return to it. Berklee has given me hardly nothing in terms of help with my homeless situation, but yet I have given Berklee my name, my Saxophone talent in some of the top ensembles in the School Herbie Hancock ensemble, J-dilla ensemble (which performed in the Brooklyn Hip hop festival in 2011, and 2012 with music legends Q tip, and de LA SOUL, I have performed regularly at the Historic landmark in Boston Wallys Jazz caf almost every night, I have played in one of the top Gb bands in Boston East coast Soul. I have performed in countless recitals at the school, every time I am performing that is more money for Berklee, each time someone asks what school are you from? That is more money for Berklee. Berklee gets to make thousands of dollars off of one individual like me, and all I get back is homelessness. How can one be expected to succeed when dealing with extreme situations such as hunger, and homelessness?? You really cant this situation can only lead to failure, a mistake, that I am not ashamed to admit, but will not allow to destroy me, just like I did not allow the pitfalls of Camden to destroy me I will not allow this mistake in my education to destroy me. Where there is a will, and a desire to change and correct a mistake there is a

way. Failure to satisfy any one of these standards (berklee talking about SAP) will result in a student being placed on satisfactory academic progress warningStudents placed on satisfactory academic progress warning will gave one additional semester of enrollment to meet the standards for satisfactory academic progress. I was not granted a warning from Berklee. I only found out that something was wrong, when I tried to apply for financial aid for the 2012 fall semester. I was told to appeal for my aid, and I was not explained the rules, that you had to wait a year to appeal, I was sent a short letter by Berklee not explaining much of anything, and I was denied an appeal. Denying me from attending Berklee College of music because of my past mistakes does not logically make sense due to the facts. MY grade point average is not a 4.0, but I am attaining a fair grade point average (2.152) despite me being homeless, and without scholarship according to the berklee system. I am aware that there is a rule that you must be able to complete your degree or diploma program within 150 percent of the normal credits allotted for degree or diploma

completion, and at the rate I am going I will hit 149, and the maximum amount of credits for my program to complete within 150% would be 144. In 2 years I can complete my program and will only be 5 credits over the 150% line, being as though my student loans will be due soon, from The government for financial aid, and my private loan, it does not make sense for me to sit out and go to another school, where I would not be able to get the classes I need to finish my program, while further slipping into debt the longer I stay out of school. I am committed to doing whatever it takes to finish my classes, and credits at Berklee, I have learned from this past year and a half that my future is not looking to bright if I dont finish at Berklee. Loans will be due, the economy is tough without have credentials, it is just basically financially impossible for me to exist in the music business now without the diploma or degree. I am asking for Berklee to please grant me one more chance to finish what I started so I can also show my family, my friends all improve shed people all over the world that you can make it, if you never give up, so I can show myself that I can make it! I plan to finish school, and attain masters at the Thelonius monk institute of jazz; it would be my dream comes true. I would be the first in my family to achieve a

Masters. I ask You SAP Academic board to please see my case, and to reconsider your decision based on extraordinary need to excel, and to be successful, I must graduate, to amend this mistake, to heal the wounds and cure the curse of failure prominent throughout the history of my family, and city. I please ask you to allow a little bit of light to come from the diaspora The city that god forgot, Camden, NJ please help me to attain my Masters and Bachelors from Berklee College of music. My life is in your hands.