Hi!
I applied to UCLA for a chemistry major in the college of Letters and Sciences and was swiftly rejected. This surprised me because most of the people I know in my school at least got waitlisted. This had led me to believe that the UCLA admissions committee saw something seriously wrong in my application, and I think it is my unweighted GPA. It was only a 3.74, and my UC GPA only comes out to 4.1ish (because I took a community college course and got an A, along with a bunch of AP classes). So in my appeal letter, should I focus on the fact that I CAN handle the UCLA course-load and detail the reasons for my relatively low GPA? Of course, I would also mention how much UCLA means to me in terms of fitting in to my future career plans.
For example, I wanted to talk about the fact that I was ambitious but naive, and I ended up taking 4 AP Classes sophomore year (including AP Calculus BC and AP Chemistry), and 8 AP classes (while self-studying a few more) Junior Year. I only did this to challenge myself and gain more knowledge, but it (obviously) backfired and I got a couple of B's along the way. I also took AP Physics C my junior year and had an absolutely horrible teacher that received a lot of similar complaints from his student. In fact, my parents had a meeting with the principal to discuss his inept teaching and unnecessarily difficult tests. But my guidance counselor won't mention this to UCLA for obvious reasons (will look bad for the school). It was the first year the course was available in my school, and the teacher was actually let go immediately after the year I took it, but it was too late and the damage to my GPA was done. I got a C in AP Physics C Mechanics and a C in AP Physics C Electricity and Magnetism. But that's why I worked hard to self-study SAT Physics and I got a 770. I just feel like that effort was unrecognized. I know a C isn't the best grade, but I got it in one of the hardest, if not the hardest, classes a high school student could take, and many students don't even take the class.
Not to mention the fact that I did have a lot of medical issues with asthma and having to miss school a lot throughout junior year, which is when I took Physics C and all those other AP’s. I did not mention any of this in my original application, something I completely regret. But what’s done is done.
In fact, I have strong test scores that are a testament to my intelligence (2380 SAT, 790 chem SAT2, 790 Math SAT2, 770 Physics SAT2, 710 Lit SAT2, lots of 4’s and 5’s in AP tests). Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about my GPA. But I did get all A’s my first semester of my senior year (in a rigorous courseload of AP’s), but I don’t know if they care about that.
I’m 100% expecting my appeal letter to be thrown in the trash, but it’s worth a shot. I say this because I know that UCLA values GPA among everything else, and in fact this year I saw a lot of people with a high GPA and mediocre test scores getting accepted. Of course, they must’ve had something unique/interesting about them.
So my question is: Will my appeal letter at least be given some consideration, or does it seem like I’m whining/making excuses?? Because I know that I’m better than what my GPA says about me, and there were a lot of external reasons why I didn’t do as well as I should have in a few classes.
If you read all of this, thank you so much! It really means a lot to me.