<p>Has anyone successfully appealed a rejection? or is there just no point in attemping an appeal?</p>
<p>Depends on the circumstances obviously. I was able get my rejection reversed, but I didn’t officially appeal. That said, any personal stories and emotions go out the window with large state schools, only raw performance will get you in.</p>
<p>@da6onet, how did you get it reversed without an official appeal? so you had to send in new grades?</p>
<p>Kind of, my old crappy grades were from 10-12 years ago. I’ve been back in school since summer 2011 and have earned 70 credits of straight A’s at my local community college. I got rejected because the admissions office at Maryland screens by cumulative gpa first. The dean of the engineering school fought the decision on my behalf. So in short, you need a compelling case and a powerful ally at the school.</p>
<p>oh university of maryland? did you know the dean of the engineering school beforehand? what’s the cumulative required for md?</p>
<p>On the advice of both my CC’s engineering transfer adviser and the Clark School’s transfer adviser, I met him in January this year ahead of time to see what he thought I should do (whether or not to even bother applying). The cumulative required to get into UMD is 3.0, I have a 2.74 when you average in my grades from 2001-2003. He took up my case considering my GPA “trend” is a step-function (<a href=“LMGTFY - Let Me Google That For You”>LMGTFY - Let Me Google That For You) and I did that while a full-time stay at home parent and worked two part time jobs.</p>
<p>so did both your advisors set you up with the dean? how long was this process would you say?</p>
<p>No they simply said “you should meet with so and so.” So then I contacted him, email plus a phone call and we met about a week later. Nothing happened after that meeting until I got my rejection notice (3 months later). I contacted him again, a couple emails back and forth and a couple phone calls. About two weeks later I was accepted.</p>
<p>I was going to if they rejected me based on my old transcript. When I applied, my transcript wasn’t updated (a new semester’s worth of classes would not be on it), so I figured that I would appeal it and send it an updated transcript. Luckily, though, I was accepted.
It’s a tough call, because a lot of schools don’t encourage them, or even allow them for that matter. It would also look bad if you reapplied next semester after appealing their prior decision. So I’d say to only appeal if you have something relevant that they did not see (an award, possibly updated transcript, better GPA, etc).</p>
<p>@da6onet:</p>
<p>Never have I seen anyone describe their GPA trend as a step function…
Awesome! haha
Engineering ftw!</p>
<p>so you were rejected first even after you talked to the dean and were accepted the second time you talked to him? how did you describe your grades as a step function? lol but you would need something like an updated transcript in order to appeal right?</p>