Hey guys,
What are the most effective reasons for an appeal to work?
What should I do if I don’t really have much changes from when I applied to the university before?
Does everyone have to write an appeal in order to be admitted off the waitlist?
Appeals really don’t work unless you really think an error was made. An appeal will not help your waitlist chances.
If you have no changes or errors in your record then you have no basis for appeal.
An appeal is different than a letter of continued interest to be sent when you are waitlisted. As noted above, there are only a few specific reasons for an actual appeal. If you’re talking about a waitlist letter, thst’s totally different. There are tons of threads on CC regarding strategies for getting off the waitlist: use the search feature. Essentially, you want to update the school with any new accomplishments, and perhaps reiterate why you are a good fit for the school. If you’ll definitely attend if admitted off the waitlist, you can say that, too.
And, no, you don’t have to send in anything if you don’t want to.
Since no one has yet highlighted it in this thread, I will offer a truly essential point:
- Just because an applicant (and his parents, GC, clergyman, favorite teacher, etc.) is deeply convinced he merited acceptance, and/or
- Because he believes a classmate, friend, relative, acquaintance, etc. was admitted with less deserving record, and/or
3 Because he absolutely knows his GPA, SAT/ACT results, and/or curricular rigor are superior to individuals who were admitted, and/or - Because he’s certain a URM, recruited athlete, legacy, etc. unjustly “took” his seat in the freshman class . . .
HE HAS NO LEGITIMATE BASIS TO APPEAL.
As indicated in earlier posts to this thread, ONLY clear errors (e.g., one’s GPA was miscalculated) or new and pertinent information (e.g., your much enhanced SAT I scores were provided on-time to the university, but never entered in your file) are generally legitimate grounds for an appeal.
Many universities appropriately assess candidates holistically and it is common – we see it daily on CC – for youngsters to be entirely convinced that (for example) their essays, their recommendations, and/or their ECs are truly great. Obviously, however, not everyone’s essays, recs, and ECs can be outstanding; some (as a consequence of a normal/bellcurve distribution) must be good, or oaky, or poor, or just plain terrible.
However, it’s essentially impossible to convince many kids – who unquestionably have worked very hard, achieved a lot, and should be quite proud of their high school records – that an institution that accepts on 5 ,10, 15, or 20 percent of its applicants actually was thorough, fair, and reasonable in denying so many, with such demonstrably fine performance and potential. What seems frequently to be missing is a real understanding of:
- Just how competitive and selective admissions to some institutions necessarily must be, and
- The fact that **most applicants for these schools have stellar records that merit acceptance, notwithstanding the simple arithmetic of that class sizes are comparatively small and candidate pools are both comparative huge and very distinguished.