<p>Hello, I was just rejected from USC and I think I am going to try to appeal. It is fairly complicated, but I was a very high level student through my junior year of high school (2340 SAT, a 4.2-4.3 W GPA, and 250+ hours community service, internship with an assemblyman, some awards, etc.), but after junior year, one of my best friends that I had known since I was little committed suicide and soon after I developed a fairly severe anxiety disorder (my father had died suddenly when I was 10, which the doctors I have talked to believe relates to the anxiety disorder). As a result of this, I missed school fairly often and struggled greatly during my first semester of senior year (received a D+ in AP Calculus B/C, C in ceramics). This mental illness took over my life for a period and I literally was unable to focus on any schoolwork. By the time I started to receive help for my disorder, it was already too late. I wrote a letter addressing this, but I do not know if they even really considered it or just threw it out after seeing the grades. Another thing is that I am part of a political science program where we do a senior project and there is an Independent Studies period the first semester of senior year dedicated to it. My senior project could not be fully graded until after the semester as I am holding a health fair for a middle school in April, so it went in as incomplete. My teacher upgraded it temporarily to a B+ even though the project was not completed yet (will likely get upgraded to A). I did not write about this health fair in my application, so I could talk about that as well. </p>
<p>What do you guys think? Any advice in how I should go about doing this? I am going through a hard time right now, knowing how hard I worked and the things I achieved in my years of high school, just for it to fall away because of a mental illness I faced.</p>
<p>You need to appeal no doubt…god bless you</p>
<p>Thank you. I almost feel like the admissions counselors are just brushing it off as an excuse. They probably see so many students with excuses, some legitimate and some not. Do you think I should mention all 3 of those things (my anxiety disorder, the incomplete grade, and the health fair)?</p>
<p>It is one page appeal, see if you can present all in concise manner.
Good Luck!</p>
<p>Nevermind! Just got accepted to UC Berkeley! Thanks for the help though! I literally transitioned from EXTREMELY saddened to extremely happy in an hour!</p>
<p>I just got rejected with a 2330 SAT, 3.9 GPA UW, A Biology research job at a local University 300 Hours, 700+ SAT IIs, Hospital Internship, and good essays. Any ideas what went wrong? Is it worth appealing?</p>
<p>Yeah, you both should appeal. There really is no telling what goes on with admissions. My son got waitlisted from Northwestern (but doesn’t really care because USC is his first choice.) I think sometimes schools will reject you if they think you aren’t really interested. </p>
<p>Good luck to you both.</p>
<p>bilginsoy,</p>
<pre><code> You are a complete stranger to me. All I know about you is from the board. I have never seen your school references or where you really want to attend college. The only GUESS I can make is you applied ED to an eastern college. PERHAPS SC might have felt you had little interest in attending, if admitted. As you now know SC had over 45,000 applicants. For many this was their dream school since they were children.
If you are not interested any longer in your ED choice, then it may be a positive move for you to appeal. Your scores, grades and ECs are excellent. I am only speculating, but your best avenue may be convincing SC you really want to attend and participate fully at the school and take advantage of the all the opportunities open to you at SC.
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<p>If you appeal it must be a well thought out letter expressing your personality and strong desire to attend, in my opinion.</p>
<p>If you are interested in the sciences one of the greats in the field of neuroscience is at SC, Dr. Antonio Damasio. The university is pouring funds into this major and there are many Academy members as faculty. It would be challenging and as exciting as any other science major in nearly any school. He won the Honda Prize last year (Japan’s Nobel) and I would not be surprised to see him win the Nobel Prize in the future. </p>
<p>Good luck in making this decision.</p>