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College Problem: Rejected for admission How can I appeal?
Last week, I was rejected from the arts program of one of my choice schools (due to a lower academic average but they put me on hold and waited till now to tell me) that I really wanted to go to (I'm transferring from community college). The website told me that I could appeal any decisions by directly contacting the person who sent me the letter. And then send a letter to enrollment services and after that, I could even appeal it to the senate.
So I'm going to e-mail them and hope they'll change their minds. My problem is that my early grades were crap because I was going through a lot of problems psychologically and socially. In the past year, I have been really trying hard and my GPA went up from 2.78 to 3.22 in the past semester but dropped again because I took 5 difficult courses in my last semester to deal with admission requirements (stats, sciences etc). So I have two questions...
1. How should I phrase this so that they will understand where I'm coming from and reconsider me? What could I add to make it sound better? I'm very active in my community, I volunteer and have worked for many non-profit orgs. In high school, I received a scholarship for high scores on the SAT. Should I add that in the initial e-mail? What should I put in?
2. If I send them this letter and they don't change their minds, could this hurt my chances of applying to grad school there?
Thank you so much for your help,
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This is a hard situation. A letter explaining all the things you mentioned here could sound like a list of excuses (even if that's not how you intended it). College appeals are usually meant for people who feel they've been discriminated against or treated unfairly in some way. Generally, there is an "appeals commission" made up of professors and administrators. They hear stories like yours every day. Lives are complicated and sometimes bad things happen. But that's just the way it is. Sometimes we have to pay the price for life's circumstances and the choices we make during those circumstances. I don't mean to sound harsh, but taking difficult courses for your requirements doesn't sound like a legitimate reason for the appeals board to reverse the rejection. After all, if you can't handle the requirement courses for admission, how could you handle the courses once you were enrolled? If you feel strongly about it, go ahead and appeal, but be wary about your letter sounding like a list of excuses. We can't always have what we want in this life. Maybe this is a sign that there is a better program out there for you, at another school. You're so wrapped up in this dream you've been working toward that you may be missing out on a really great experience at a different institution. As for grad admissions, a rejection for undergrad should not affect that. Grad and undergrad programs are generally run as to separate entities. Find a place you like, where you can excel and thrive, work hard (like it sounds you've already been doing) and go ahead and apply to the grad program there. Good luck to you. Whatever happens, keep moving toward your ultimate goal, even if it means changing the road map here and there.
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