I got rejected from UCLA, and I wanted to send in an appeal. I know that the acceptance rate on appeals is extremely low, but I wanted to go ahead and give it a shot. I was completely unfamiliar with how the whole UC admissions system worked, and I made a huge mistake by making a small portion of my first personal statement about UCSD, so the reason for the rejection is clear. Would explaining my mistake provide a legitimate enough reason for me to send an appeal? Fortunately, UCSD accepted me for computer science ( 
), but after taking a visit to UCLA, I had a change of heart. I’d even be so appreciative for the chance to attend UCLA as an undeclared student and work hard enough for a spot in comp sci later on!
if you got rejected from LA “engineering” but got accepted to UCD / SB, I think people would understand you appealing…but SD? it’s like got into MIT (UCSD much much bigger engineering school) but rejected from Caltech (much much smaller engineering school). Why would you want to appeal just for the environment and undeclared major? As far as program goes UCSD’s comp sci is at least on par if not better than UCLA’s. As a matter fact, I think engineering/science school and students quality in California would rank like this Caltech / HarveyMudd / Cal > UCSD > UCLA > USC. I think the students who actually got into their engineering schools at least from academic point of view, they are better than UCLA’s engineering/science kids. Just look at their average SAT math for the last year. and that’s just average SAT math that’s already higher than UCLA’s. then picture the average SAT math score for the folks who got into their engineering school (impacted majors). http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/freshman/profiles/index.html
And also look at how many Nobel laureates in their short history comparing to UCLA’s.
I think you are very fortunate to get into their CS department, truth to be told.
Be very careful. The appeal process for UCLA will extend past the Statement of Intent to Register (SIR) due date for other schools, so you will be gambling your admission to UCSD for a chance at UCLA.
He wouldn’t be risking UCSD. You just SIR to UCSD, then if UCLA comes through you can withdraw the SIR from UCSD. Assuming that happens you’ll want to minimize the amount of time you’re SIR’d to both schools, so SIR UCLA and withdraw UCSD on the same day, ideally.
Personally, I don’t think it’s worth your time to appeal. Why not attend UCSD and if you’re not happy there you can apply to transfer to UCLA after a year? If you were rejected and not even waitlisted I think the effort of an appeal is not worth your time as it’s very unlikely to succeed when they have so many on a waitlist already. Plus as others have said UCSD has a very good CompSci program, too.
Why discourage him? There’s absolutely nothing to lose when doing an appeal, save for several hours that he would spend working on it. Just because UCSD is better doesn’t mean it will fit him; he should appeal to where he wants to go (and maybe visit afterwards).
The guidelines on how to appeal are unclear, but I don’t believe just fixing what you messed up on would do. Try and provide them with some new, appealing (haha, punny) info!
Good luck.
@bookmouse did, they have a long waitlist so appealing would let him down a second time