So I was rejected from UCSB. I have some other options but I would very much like to go to Santa Barbara.
Yes, I am perfectly aware of the slim chances and difficulties of getting in without even being on the waitlist. I’m not sure if it’s too long, or even if admissions officers will read the whole thing to the end. Also, I was accepted at UCSD and am not sure whether it would help to mention that in the letter.
With that said, here is my letter. Any feedback is much appreciated, so thank you in advance:
Dear UCSB Admissions Officers,
I respect and understand your decision to decline my Fall 2016 admission application. I can only try to understand the difficulty of having to potentially decide a young person’s future based on test scores and grade point averages. However, I would like to bring to light some information regarding my sophomore year performance. Just after the first semester I was accepted into a Santa Cruz sister cities program that sends student delegates to Shingu-shi, Japan. During my two weeks in Asia I learned a great deal about culture and international relations, but the extensive missed coursework caused my grades to suffer and I struggled to get caught up before the year came to a close. I admit that it was entirely my decision to go on the trip, but the negative consequences were far greater than I could have understood at the time. The drop in my GPA from that semester has lingered ever since and reflects a student with less potential and motivation than I truly have. Consequently, I must write this letter because UC Santa Barbara is the perfect college for me.
When writing my personal statements I had no inkling of what field to go into because I was interested in so many subjects. This lack of direction caused my statements to be almost directionless, but I have now discovered through speaking with my teachers about careers and college majors that economics is my true field of choice and I am fully prepared to work my hardest to become educated on a subject that I love. It is the perfect mix of mathematics, sociology, and psychology, and I am very interested in how societies function as well as how individuals think and act. Behavioral economics is particularly exciting, and UCSB’s experimental and behavioral economics laboratory is very intriguing. I enjoy critical thinking, making predictions about behavior, and analyzing data, as these things allow for the exploration of more facets of study than most other majors. I am sure that countless students express the beauty of the UCSB campus as reasons for wanting to attend, and of course I agree, but what makes UCSB so special is that it combines that amazing environment with top ranked environmental, experimental, and behavioral/cognitive economics programs, not to mention the rest of the academics at the school.
Though I slipped, I am still a very motivated and competent student, and I hope that my above average SAT scores and club activities can attest to that. I have worked hard to rectify my mistakes by taking the most rigorous but well rounded schedule possible and have performed very well on AP tests with fives in Language and Composition and U.S. History, as well as a three on Physics I in junior year alone. I take complete responsibility for my past flippancy but I am ready to work full-force for my education and will get all that I can out of it. I care greatly about learning as much as I can, and I know that no matter where I end up going at the postsecondary level I will pursue knowledge and societal involvement with as much vigor as I did all of my activities in high school. However, I also know that attending UCSB would magnify my efforts and push my strides to even greater distances than my other options, so before I accept my other options, I find it necessary to give my top school one last shot.
I am writing this letter because I would like to have the opportunity to get a quality education, but the more I think about it, the more I realize it is a letter to myself as much as it is to you. In conclusion, I thank you for taking the time read this letter in its entirety regardless of your ultimate decision, and although I will accept whatever that decision is ungrudgingly, I implore you to allow me to succeed and grow at UC Santa Barbara.