<p>To be honest, if you have no idea why you got rejected, your appeal will probably not do you any good. In the appeal, students should exhibit how the ‘weak’ part of their application has been improved or was not presented to the best of their ability.</p>
<p>I’ve had some friends who appealed rejections successfully (and there was someone on CC last year who was waitlisted and appealed successfully) that I kind of helped out with ‘third party’ insights to their applications. I also have an overview/basic tips pdf about appealing that I had written up for them. PM me or leave me a visitor’s message if you want a copy. I’ll be out and about since it’s Spring Break, but I’ll get back to you to the best of my ability.</p>
<p>On their experiences … our speculation on why my friends were originally rejected is different for every applicant. Here’s two of my friends’ experiences:</p>
<p>One had a ~3.98-3.9UW GPA (+good handful of AP/Honors courses), ~2200SAT, lettered in 2 sports, and was an overall well rounded student. I took a look at his essays and extra curriculars portion of his application and he sounded so … one dimensional. He’s not great about writing about himself. In his appeal, he rewrote the extra curricular portion, got some personal recommendations with his manager, a teacher he worked closely with throughout high school, and wrote a very dynamic letter about some personal stuff that changed him in some way (being vague here).</p>
<p>Another friend had an average applicant’s GPA (with ups and downs in GPA trend) and test scores. His essays were okay. However, he was taking a rigorous senior year schedule of about 5 APs, 1 Honors, and just 1 ‘normal’ course… and he was acing it. As someone looking in, I could tell he was trying to take his senior year very seriously rather than dive straight into senioritis. This high school is also well known in the Seattle area for being extremely rigorous; some of the other local high schools here are known to / have a reputation of handing out A’s, even in AP courses. His main focus in his appeal was about buckling down and becoming a mature student.</p>
<p>These are two examples of students WITHOUT some situation they can’t really control, such as major deaths in the family, an impending illness, handicap, etc.</p>
<p>TLDR:
- Figure out why you got rejected.
- Write appeal.
- Submit to admissions people.
- Hear back shortly afterwards.</p>