What do you think of this? Is it good?
To Whom It May Concern,
I am honored to have been a recipient of the University Dean’s Scholars Award for the perceived strengths in my application to the school. Unfortunately, due to a single failed a course during my second semester, my GPA has dropped to a 2.98, putting me 0.02 below the minimum for the renewal of the scholarship this upcoming school year. I am writing to you in the hope that the decision to retract my scholarship will be reconsidered.
I will concede that my prior semester was both emotionally and mentally stressful for me. My past record shows that I am fully capable of performing at the level expected of scholarship recipients, and my hope is that I can put in place a series of steps that will help ensure that future semesters will not be like the one I just finished. My first plan is to retake the course I failed. This will give me the opportunity to remove the zero that is currently weighing down my GPA. In addition, I intend to make use of, to the best of my ability, the Student Counseling Services and Student Access Services. In particular, I intend to increase the type and amount of work I do with Student Access Services to ensure it gives me the best chance of success. Finally, I plan to have more active communication with my academic advisor to help plan and manage my course load going forward. With these steps in place, I believe we can prevent future semesters from being repeat offenders.
I do believe that this past semester was an exception rather than the norm, and I hope that given a second chance, I can prove that your belief in my potential was not misplaced. Thank you for your consideration.
Pretty good. Could explain why you failed the class and why you think you could pass it if you take it again.
Don’t be coy. You did poorly. You know it, and they know it. Saying “I will concede” about your own mental and emotional experience makes it seem like a legal negotiation in which you are only grudgingly stipulating the facts.
Instead take ownership. Simply own your experience, own your responsibility for not reaching out to the available support services, and own your responsibility for what the next semester will be.
The planned steps you lay out in the second paragraph do help to demonstrate your intention to learn from this incident, but there’s also some softness in your language that suggests you’re neither entirely confident they will work nor entirely taking responsibility for what will happen. e.g. “I believe WE can prevent” and “I HOPE that given a second chance, I can prove”. Ultimately, intention to learn is no substitute for actually having learned.
Remember, you are asking for leniency in the enforcement of an established policy. Your success depends primarily on the goodwill of the person(s) reading your letter and their confidence in your future performance.
You’re now effectively in competition with other students who might qualify for the same scholarship. If a reader can’t see that you’re on fire to recover from this and on fire to succeed, how can you expect them to choose you over one of those students?
Be genuine, sincere, and honest. Write with the intention of making a human connection with the reader. And show, clearly, how you are already someone who will perform at a higher level in the next semester.
OK, I also think that the “I will concede” and the “I do believe” sound stilted (why not “I know” and “I believe”) but this is 10 times better than most of the other appeal letters posted here. Good luck!
I have always disliked the passive voice, but I see it all the time in business. Maybe people think it sounds more formal or polite? I think it sounds sort of indirect and unnecessarily wordy. Anyway I always ask my employees to use it very sparingly. You may want to try rewriting all passive sentences to make them direct, concise, and active, see how it reads.
E.g.: “I am writing to you in the hope that the decision to retract my scholarship will be reconsidered.” Would be more powerful if written " I am asking you to please reconsider the retraction of my scholarship". Just my opinion. Happy to see a plan of action there!
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