I agree with all of Pizzagirl’s recommendations. She nailed how to write a good appeal.
I think the letter pizzagirl wrote in post #14 is perfect. It is clear, direct, doesn’t sound like you are making excuses and explains your plan to improve next year. Less is better. Good luck!
okay. thanks a lot guys.
I question is that academic suspensions don’t just happen on a whim. Somewhere along the line you were placed either on warming or academic probation. What did you do in that case? Did you write an appeal them also? If yes, was there any progress made between the time you were placed on probation and now that you have been suspended. What academic plan did you put in place? What worked? What did not work?
What changes will you out in place to be successful in the future?
On a side note, if you have been academically suspended you have most likely also lost ant financial aid that you were receiving for failure to meet SAP. You probably already appealed when you were in jeopardy of losing it or gad it replaced at the probation phase. What is your plan for paying for school?
You you think perhaps you should take a break, come up with a concrete plan and regroup before going back?
Miss smiley, this is a small thing I’m about to say, but it illustrates a larger point.
You had your letter in word properly indented; you cut and pasted it into the text box to post here where it lost the paragraph breaks. That’s fine, but it would have taken less than a minute to have re-inserted paragraph breaks to make the letter more readable to those whom you were asking for help.
It’s precisely this kind of initiative that colleges are seeking. You see something that needs to be corrected, you just go ahead and correct it without waiting to be told.
sybbie719, actually, I was never notified that I was on academic probation. In fact on my transcript from last semester it says that I am in good standing, however this semester it says suspended.
Even IF you weren’t officially put on academic probation after your fall term, your grades make it clear that you needed to get help. What did you do to get that help then? You don’t just fail courses overnight…you have quizzes, tests,many other grades throughout the term.
Right. I didn’t do too much to get help at that point in time
Misssmiley, what we are asking for is - why didn’t you seek out help. We get that you didn’t have money for books. We get that your beloved grandmother was ill (and I’m glad she’s better). We get that someone was harassing you. Those are all unfortunate situations. But what we are asking is – what prevented you from reaching out to someone, somehow - a counseling center, a professor to ask for special help, the financial aid office to see if something could be done, etc. Right now, what’s being portrayed is that of someone stuck in the sand. This is not what you want to portray to be successful in an appeal. Make sense?
The reasons why I didn’t seek help, in short was due to the fact that by the time I realized I needed help, i thought it would be too late to do anything about it.
If I was this college, I would want to know:
- That you realize what the problems are/were
- That you realize what tools there are at the college to help
- That you have figured out how to overcome the issues
A) Money - You didn’t have enough money to buy books. Did the professor have a book on reserve at the library you cuold have used? DO you have enough money now? Do you realize that you cannot take a class without a book?
B) Failing Classes - Do you understand why you failed psychology? Did you go to the professors office hours? Do you understand what you need to do to pass a class?
C) Harassment - Do you understand who can help you at school about that? Is it done?
D) Housing - Is your housing taken care of?
E) Grandma - Is your grandma’s health stabilized? What happens if something goes wrong again? Do you have coping mechanisms?
They see you have dropped out of /have failed classes. They don’t think you are ready to do college right now. You have to show them you have figured out how to succeed.
“The reasons why I didn’t seek help, in short was due to the fact that by the time I realized I needed help, i thought it would be too late to do anything about it.”
That’s not really a reason. Were you afraid to seek help? Were you ashamed? Did you not know what sources of help were available to you? Were you too depressed to make a move forward even if you knew what the move should have been? We’re asking you to be more self-introspective deliberately - because “I didn’t” doesn’t cut it, and “I didn’t but I should have” doesn’t cut it either. You need to demonstrate that you FULLY understand WHY you didn’t reach out for help, and demonstrate that it will never, ever happen again and here’s the plan you have in place to proactively deal with these situations.
It seems to me that the OP added language about depression and coping mechanisms verbatim from someones suggestions. Hate to ask but is that even true?
I took that out because I don’t even have substantial proof of my depression. thanks^^^ but it’s not nesscary. (sp). pizza girl, I was afraid to seek help because I was ashamed.
Ok. That’s ok. Then you need to address that head-on by saying something like … “I recognize now that I could have done x, y and z to address these issues. I didn’t because at the time I was too ashamed and felt that I shouldn’t be asking for help. I have since recognized that the sign of a strong person is to ask for help, and so I’ve put the following things in place …”
okay. I will add that to the appeal then. Thanks so much for your help. i really appreciate it.
Misss…please use your own words. Take Pizzagirl’s ideas and put them in your own words. This has to be YOUR voice speaking…not someone else’s.
I understand that. That is what I was intending on doing anyways. Thanks.
Focus on cutting out extraneous words from your sentences.
For example, take this sentence:
*“The reasons why I didn’t seek help, in short was due to the fact that by the time I realized I needed help, i thought it would be too late to do anything about it.” *
You can say exactly the same thing by saying the following:
- By the time I realized I needed help, I thought it was too late.*
You don’t need the “in short.” You don’t need the “due to the fact.” Your writing has lots of these extraneous words. Sometimes young people think that putting in extra words sounds more “adult” and professional, but it really doesn’t.
Okay. You’re right. I did think by sounding like that I would sound more professional