<p>So, Thursday night I logged in to my UCSB application at around 6:00 PM. Was pretty sure I was going to see the same "decision pending" message I'd been seeing for, oh, a month or so.</p>
<p>Instead, in nice neat little letters was the statement "Not Admitted", and a kind, though rather condescending, letter below it. I was a bit confused, given my GPA and the rest, so I had no real idea why they didn't admit me. I figured it might have been because I applied to Political Science at UCSB when my personal statements and all my prereqs were targeted towards getting into Legal Studies at Berkeley (UCSB is my second choice school).</p>
<p>Given that it was late in the day, I decided to deal with the situation on Friday.</p>
<p>That morning, after classes, I called up the admissions center at UCSB. After a bit of digging, and talking with a very tired-sounding admissions counselor, I found out why I was rejected. It wasn't my GPA, wasn't my prereqs being out of line, or my choice in major, wasn't my negative experience in art school, none of that.</p>
<p>No, apparently, the person making my admissions decision had, on the 16th of April, sent me an email asking for a bit more clarification about my work experience and time away from school (I took about 3 years away from school between art school and starting my transfer program at CCSF). I didn't respond to that email, so my application was rejected.</p>
<p>Problem is, near as I can tell, and to the best of my knowledge.... I never received that email.</p>
<p>When I applied to the UC system last year, I created a special email account <em>just</em> for that purpose. All email from any school that contacted me would go to that account, then forward into my main account. Thus, I'd have a record of all communications from the school without having to worry about accidentally deleting something on my main email account, or losing it in spam filters, or not seeing it in the mass of random crap I sometimes get in my email. I check the school-only email address once a week or so, just to make sure nothing got spam-filtered, and to make sure that everything is getting forwarded to me. It's working perfectly.</p>
<p>In short, the last email I have from UCSB (proving that they do have my correct email address) was on the 21st of March, detailing the upcoming admissions announcements. I have several more prior to that, along with email from UCSC, UCR, and Berekely. I have nothing at all from any ucsb.edu email address in April, nor anything that isn't an automated message from one of the other campuses. </p>
<p>Near as I can tell, the person must have typed my email address wrong and, whatever error they made, was a valid address. So, the question went off into the ether somewhere and I was never aware of it.</p>
<p>The counselor I spoke with said that there was nothing that could be done. I have to appeal; I cannot be reconsidered for admission directly. I think this is kind of silly, given that this was more of a mistake type situation, than an actual problem with my candidacy as a student. After all, <em>had</em> I received that email, as a student genuinely interested and invested in attending the school, under what possible circumstances would I have chosen <em>not</em> to respond to it? That makes no sense at all, from a logical viewpoint.</p>
<p>Anyway, I'm trying to figure out my next steps. I'm thinking I need to talk to someone a bit higher up in the admissions department and get a copy of that email, preferably a printout of the original. That would show if the email address typed in by the person reviewing my app was wrong. Further, given that there's still a week for open decisions, I really don't see why I shouldn't be able to provide the information they were looking for in that email and have my app reconsidered. </p>
<p>Any advice on how to proceed in this situation? Obviously I can appeal, but I'd like to take some rectifying action before that becomes necessary.</p>