Dear Academic Standing Committee Members,
I am writing this letter to request an appeal of my current dismissal status from XXX University. During my 2015 spring semester, I faced personal family issues. I was stubborn and refused to seek assistance from counselors and professors. I strongly wish to stay as a student of XXX University. Given another chance next semester, I will correct these mistakes in order to succeed next semester.
My mother in the past had surgery to remove a brain tumor when I was a child. Although the operation was successful she had several side effects. During this spring semester of February she suffered a stroke and was admitted to the hospital for one month. I was distracted from my studies as I worried for my mother’s condition and the potential for her to have another stroke. During this period I kept to myself and attempted to suppress any emotions. I tried to cope with my problems through isolating myself which clearly was the wrong thing to do. I needed to seek help to overcome this issue.
My poor performance reflects upon my irresponsibility as a student and the lack of actions I took to improve my grades. By the time I realized I needed help in order to recover from my failing grades, I had thought that it was too late to seek help. I was ashamed of myself and afraid of the potential negative criticism of others. I realize now that this stubbornness and refusal to get help from others was immature. It is indefinitely worse for me to be ignorant of the issues at hand and assuming I would be able to resolve them by myself.
In order to prevent myself from repeating these mistakes, I plan on taking several actions to be successful. I will meet with the class dean of my year and my academic advisor to create studying plan and improve my time management. I plan to use the resources available to me such as the Advising and Learning assistance center so that I can work with teaching assistants and my peers. If I have any issues whatsoever in class, I will not be fearful of getting help from professors and attend their office hours. Although my mother’s condition has stabilized, it does not guarantee she won’t suffer a stroke or her health will not deteriorate in the future. Therefore I plan on visiting the health center on campus to notify them of the concerns I had last semester so that I may get counseling services.
It is my fault that I failed my spring semester classes. I was shortsighted and refused to see my problems when I clearly needed help. I am a good student who had one bad semester. I hope you can give me a second chance in the fall so that I can prove myself as a XXX University student. Thank you for your time and consideration for this appeal.
Please give any advise and help to review this letter. Last semester I got a GPA of 1.8 which was below the 2.0 threshold which lead me to this academic dismissal appeal. Overall my GPA is 2.78. The issue I have with this letter is that the second paragraph comes off as unnecessary drama and superfluous information. However, I cannot seem to make it more concise without simply stating that my mother was ill. I just wanted to give some more background information to the committee to help them understand the circumstances.
Your letter needs to include three things.
- What happened, written succinctly. You are close on that. I personally think you are a bit too wordy, and your letter is too heavy on this.
- What you have ALREADY DONE to correct this issue. I didn't see anything you have already done.
- What you will continue to do, and additions things you will do. Your letter is a little short on this.
Important…remember that yours isn’t the only letter being read. Keep your letter succinct, and provide the factual details only. Try not to make your letter too wordy or long.
For number 2 of your point, when you refer to what I’ve already done to correct this issue, are you referring to what I already tried to do to fix the issue during the semester or after I had found out I had received the poor grades? During the semester, I stubbornly tried to play catchup with my class material as I had fallen behind due to being emotionally distracted. I began to read the textbook and tried to review lectures, but found that I often had questions to the content. I could not answer these myself and figured that it’d be fine when it clearly wasn’t. Looking back, I only did the homework and didn’t do as much review and studying for my exams, which resulted in my poor grades.
To shorten the second paragraph, you could delete the first two sentences and say “In February my mother suffered a stroke…” Then shorten and merge together the last three sentences into something like: During this period I kept to myself and did not communicate well with my professors or ask for help." Something like that.
You are a good writer – you should be getting better grades.
Thanks for the advice, I am currently a rising junior and the biggest problem I had last semester was that it was up to me to resolve this problem. Back in high school, whenever I did poorly on an exam or had issues, the teachers were the ones to approach me first and ask if I had needed assistance in learning the material. Freshman year, I found my classes to be challenging but not too difficult as the workload was manageable.
However once I became a sophomore and began to take core classes pertaining to my major in the spring semester I was overwhelmed with my work and I felt helpless. The professors did offer help through e-mails, but I suppose it was because that there were so many students that I felt disconnected with them hence why I was afraid of reaching out to them. I felt that now that I was a college student I needed to be much more independent instead of being too reliant when obviously that is not the case. Looking back it was petty of me to think that way and I realized too late that professors don’t think any less of students that come to them for help. I was worried about being a nuisance and them thinking poorly of me for doing so.
This issue compounded with my mother’s poor health at the time snowballed my problems and I felt I lost control of the situation.
Do you have documentation of your mother’s stroke and hospitalization? I would include that with any letter.
Usually, I would suggest keeping the letter short with a focus on what happened with your mother. (In fact, I would suggest in the future that you withdraw if your mother has another crisis and you need to focus on her.)
However, I am sensing that you actually feel that is a weak excuse and also gather, with further information from you, that you have not been doing well with your time management and studies for awhile, so that the suspension is not necessarily a result only of the spring semester, but more cumulative. Please correct me if this is wrong though.
You are a good writer, I agree. And very well intentioned. But many professors don’t offer the kind of help you seem to think they might offer. Tutors, advisors, deans, counselors, professors all play different roles.
Is it possible you have ADHD or some other diagnosable problem so that you could get accommodations? Have you ever been evaluated? You can be very bright but still have a challenge like that.
The parts about realizing you need help are weak, in my opinion. I would be much more specific. I think you needed to tell someone about your mother. As for the other kinds of help you needed, I am not convinced you have that set up.
I sympathize. My stepfather died while I was taking a poetry class. I was 22, and not actually enrolled in the college. I went home to take care of my mother and forgot about the class! I got an F that is still on my transcript. it is good for us parents to remember being young :).
Do you have other options for the fall? Often you can take classes elsewhere and prove you can return. It might be good to take a break and figure out what the problem really is. College isn’t a race and there are lots of ways to do it.
I am surprised that you were able to deduct so much from just my appeal letter. I started to slip up my grades the fall of spring semester as well. I received several B’s and one C, compared to the almost straight high B’s and A’s of freshman year. I have not considered the fact that I may have ADHD and will meet with my family doctor for a diagnosis. If I am to be suspended for one year, I plan to attend a community college near my home for the duration and retake some of the classes that I did poorly on the past fall and spring semester. Even though my parents are disappointed with me, they are quite supportive and are understanding of my situation. They told me themselves that if I am to be suspended, it’s fine as college is just one step of the numerous in life. If anything, I am more disappointed at myself more than anybody else that I let myself make these mistakes in the first place.