<p>@Highland, I was about to reference that EXACT link. :D</p>
<p>The appeal letter in that link is insufferable and almost as overblown as the OP’s first draft. It might have worked ten years ago when it was something new and different, but it shouldn’t be considered a model for anyone today.</p>
<p>I didn’t think schools considered/responded to appeals letters for admission denials. If they do, read carefully what conditions they will consider, and speak only to those issues in your letter. Good luck.</p>
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<p>This says it all.</p>
<p>The OP is willing to leave in anything that is merely “superfluous” or “too superfluous” . . . and will focus instead on excising those passages deemed “way too superfluous.”</p>
<p>Unfortunately, instead of focusing on the “way too superfluous,” the OP should instead be searching for anything in the letter that is actually essential. And everything else - yes, I mean EVERYTHING - should be removed.</p>
<p>And then clean up your grammar.</p>
<p>They are admissions officers not English professors, cut the flowery words.</p>
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<p>barrk123 - You’ve just insulted every competent English professor on the planet!</p>
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<p>I apologize :(</p>
<p>When ever I get my other letter edited I’ll share it up here.</p>
<p>In addition to my earlier comments…my son just filed an appeal to UCSD and was accepted 1 week later. UCSD requires appeals be submitted on-line using their form. The appeal must be less than 250 words. He wrote the appeal - his first cut was something like 500 words. I went through and cut everything but the essential, pertinent information and the he went back through and cleaned it up. It was very bare-bones. His appeal was based on a medical condition that he preferred not to include in his original application because he doesn’t like to use it as an excuse. It is very legitimate and does sometimes slow him down. In any case it is new information that was not considered originally. There are few grounds for an appeal, but if you feel you have grounds keep it VERY short and to the point. Admissions officers have just finished reading 1000’s of essays and do not want to wade through long dialogues at this point.</p>
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<p>Why are you wasting their time telling them that their in-boxes are full? They nkow this.</p>
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<p>You like Berkeley. Great. So did all the other thousands of applicants. They don’t care what you like. It’s about who they want, not “rewarding” your love.</p>
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<p>You could have just said, “I’d really like a second chance,” and that would have summed up in 6 words everything you said here.</p>
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<p>Again, they don’t care that your life has changed. They only care - are you telling them new information that will make you more desirable to them than you were before? </p>
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<p>What “increasing amounts of responsibilities are required of you” because your uncle is in trouble? </p>
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<p>Let them judge whether those scores are good enough for their purposes. </p>
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<p>That’s a red flag right there, because it says that you see the university as holding the key to your future – not you. YOU hold the key to your future, no matter where you go.</p>
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<p>Why are you telling them this? Do you expect them to be impressed?</p>
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<p>Oh please. Being for racial equity and for same-sex marriage is hardly “novel” or something that can’t be expressed in virtually every college in this country, with the exception of highly religious or conservative ones. Please, stop painting Berkeley as leftier-than-thou. Anyway, you want to add diversity to the student body. What diversity is there in saying you’re just like everyone else there?</p>
<p>Your writing style is very overblown, with way too many details and too many flowery, big words when simpler ones will do. Your style reminds me of a poster named mifune, who “talked” like that. It’s really not a good writing style and it won’t serve you well. Just say it like you would if you were talking to someone. “I had an unusual stress in my life: my uncle was blah-blah-blah and it affected me in blah-blah-blah ways.” </p>
<p>Good luck, but you can boil this letter down to 2 or 3 paragraphs at most. Stop telling them how great they are; they know it. Stop telling them how much you love them; they aren’t rewarding those-who-love-them-the-most. If you have a point to make about your uncle’s situation, then make it – but simply saying you’ve been stressed because your uncle is in trouble – why should that be meaningful to them? And above all, stop acting as though they hold the key to your success. That’s a sure turnoff.</p>
<p>1+2 paragraphs: delete them, they already know they’re a good school</p>
<p>3rd paragraph: I’m not too sure that the situation with your uncle AFTER you submitted your initial application has anything to do with you as a student. Maybe if it happened before you submitted then your grades might have suffered, but now it’s already after the fact. Maybe there’s just a event time error; the way I read it is that you submitted your app then the uncle did his stuff; then you said that you were dealing with it while you were taking SAT prep? But you already submitted your SAT scores to them in your application. It just sounds like a pity card to me :(.</p>
<p>4th/5th paragraph: I see some grammar/tense errors. This might just be me, but I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t include names of other colleges, kinda detracts from the fact you’re appealing to Berkeley. Oh and UCSC is pretty activist (and liberal) in both environmental and social matters so if the reader knows that, it just shows that you didn’t do your research on any other college.</p>
<p>Etc. etc. what everybody else said.</p>
<p>Oh, I would say to not include God in case the reader isn’t religious. Your future isn’t in God’s hands it’s in the admissions officer’s hands!</p>
<p>K I read the letter, er rather, sorry to say, suffered through reading the letter. Seriously, it’s was a bad letter. It took me three tries to get to paragraph three regarding the beloved uncle turned bad. By then, I could have cared less.</p>
<p>Im trying not to be harsh but honest. no matter the ops accoomplishments, they would be lost in the drivel</p>
<p>Everyone’s already reminded you of the slim chances you have as an appeal, but making some changes to this essay can only help you. As others have also suggested, you’ll need to cut down the size, but just as important is the tone. You don’t need to sound like a thesaurus or a research essay. You want to sound like a person that would contribute in a human way to the university.</p>
<p>…Wait, was this an April Fools Day joke?</p>
<p>In the case that this is genuine, I hope that my previous comment didn’t offend you too much. But, seriously, you have to know that this essay is ridiculous!</p>
<p>I didn’t know the words were all that big or hard to understand…</p>
<p>Egad its not the words themselves. It’s the phrasing, the bellicose nature, the convoluted logic, the long drawn out story</p>
<p>It’s a tedious letter to read.</p>
<p>^seahorsesrock I’m understanding that and I need all the help I can get. I’m trying to have this trimmed down so I can send this off by next week. I need this criticism because I lacked it before hand. Support is excellent, but sometimes you need some harsh words to bring your ego down a few notches.</p>
<p>Ryan - If you really want to fix this, I’d suggest cutting it down to 200 words. Not kidding. Then, once you’ve done that, add in up to 100 more words that you feel are essential. Then stop.</p>
<p>Ryan- Your words are not “all that big”, however they are misused. Your writing reveals that you do not have a basic understanding of vocabulary definitions.</p>
<p>Examples: Paragraph 1.: “cannot allow this MOTION to pass without EXALTING every option that is in my AUTHORITY…”</p>
<p>MOTION should be DECISION. EXALTING should be EXPLORING. AUTHORITY should be POWER (you do not have any authority in the process, but you do have personal power.)</p>
<p>I could go on extensively, however the edit job should be done by your GC or English teacher, once you have a shortened, concise version.</p>
<p>Your real updates are minimal: senior grades. Your tone comes across as entitled: that you deserve Cal because you were a football player and popular guy (Homecoming king). The fact is , you do not qualify because of academics, and UCB has a clearly defined test score minimum for admissions. </p>
<p>If you buckle down to the hard work that college entails, you may qualify for a decent or good graduate program. At this point, just because you love UCB, does not mean they owe you a chance.</p>