Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To whom this may concern,

My name is Andrew Groom and I¿¿m currently in between my second and third years of schooling at Queens in music. Unfortunately I was forced to appeal my results last year due to some terrible circumstances involving the death of my mother, mistreatment at the hands of my father and a long and serious depression as a culmination of the two. This year, I am again forced to appeal my grades and to be allowed to return to school, but for a much different reason. I would request to remove the following credits from my transcript for the 2013-2014 year of school at queens: from the fall 2013 semester I would request to remove MUSC 128A, 191A, 221A, 227A and 255A and from winter 2014 I would request that MUSC 128B, 191B, 221B, 227B and 255B.

Starting October 31st 2013 I became very ill, and this would not end until roughly March of 2014. On November 1st at 9am, I admitted myself to KGH. This would be the first of two bouts of kidney stones I had to go through before the end of the year. The first started on October 31st/November 1st and lasted until early January. When I thought I was finally getting better in February, Mid-March the pain returned and I was diagnosed with a second round of stones which lasted into May. No matter how hard I worked during the school months, both bouts crippled my exam periods and ruined my ability to work or study at all. Documentation for all of this can be found with the appeal to remove the deadline to appeal courses, made before submitting this appeal.

I¿¿m realize it is highly unusual to submit two appeals two years back-to-back, but I hope that you can see that situations surrounding these years were both beyond my control and completely unrelated to each other. It would be unfair to assume I could have worked normally under those conditions.

I would like to apologize for the delay between appealing to have the deadline removed to appeal classes and the submitting of this appeal. I was struck by another round of kidney stones in late September, and as I was not enrolled for fall 2014 I decided to take time to properly solve this problem. That proved the right choice as I¿¿ve recently been diagnosed with a 4th round of stones this March.

As for next year I would like to return to all the courses I am requesting to have removed, but my return is contingent on my doctor giving me a clean bill of health. If I continue to get stones, I don¿¿t think coming back would be appropriate if it will only negatively impact my studies. He is confident we can solve the problem though, and if we can I intend to re-enroll in all of the courses I failed to take in 2013 and to do well in all of them. I have been working towards returning to school all year but even if I¿¿m still too sick to return, I think removing these grades sooner than later would be the best course of action.

All I¿¿ve wanted for the past 3 years is to go to school and improve at piano. Given my family life and medical history it would seem that the universe is conspiring against me, but I¿¿m determined to finish my degree. Please give me the help that I need to come back and complete my goals.

Thank you for your time,
(Alfred) Andrew Groom