UCLA Appeals **Class of 2022**

Appeals have historically come out by the end of April but last year, they came out mid-May so the current future is unclear.

bro my future is unclear

@ohgeeeez hiii, where exactly do you see your status? Because when I go to my appeal page I only see my letter and on my decision site I only see the decision I got in March.

Hello! I submitted my appeal April 1st, so it took them 3 days to change my status to:

We have received your request to reconsider our admission decision for Fall Quarter 2018. We are in the process of reviewing your record again.

Please note that a decision may not be reached until after May 1st so please plan accordingly. Once a decision has been made, the result of your appeal will be posted on this site.

UCLA Undergraduate Admission

So I don’t know if that is a good sign or not. Could I ask on what grounds are you appealing and when you sent your appeal in?

Submitted my appeal 10 PM on the 14th my application status hasn’t changed yet how long does it take?

Here is my appeal letter, I just wanted to post it and once I hear back I can update everyone on this forum. It may be helpful reference for students in the future, because I hadn’t been able to find any samples online. (I don’t know if this approach to an appeal would be effective, but I wanted them to see my personality.)

I loathe country music. The twangy voices and redundant lyrics about whiskey, “my baby”, and tractors legitimately make my skin crawl. Growing up, I would get shuttled around in my dad’s pickup and WOW 104.3 “Boise’s #1 Country Music Station” was always blaring. This would result in me administering a few scoffs, until one day Tim McGraw’s “How Bad Do You Want It” began to play. If you aren’t familiar with this tune, the chorus goes:
How bad do you want it?
How bad do you need it?
Are you eating, sleeping, dreaming
With that one thing on your mind?

As a second grader, I vividly recall those four little lines fueled my goal of solving a rubix cube in under 3 minutes. Ironically it resonated with me, and my motto almost a decade later comes from a genre of music I despise. Though my dream of attending UCLA is far more mountainous and complex than arranging a multi colored piece of plastic, my adgage throughout both journeys has remained the same. I must write this appeal.

After receiving a rejection from UCLA’s Department of Art, I respectfully request my application be reconsidered for admission into the College of Letters and Sciences as a Comparative Literature major.

On my original application Comparative Literature was listed as my alternative major choice. After consulting UCLA’s website and emailing the School of the Arts and Architecture, I became aware that “due to the high volume of applicants each term, UCLA does not normally review applicants who applied to Arts, Music, Engineering, or Theater/Film/TV majors for their alternate choices.” As the portfolio in the supplemental application is ultimately the deciding factor for admission into UCLA Arts, I would urge you to review my original application once more as the sole representation of me as a student.

Art has always been a passion of mine, but after taking courses my senior year that fostered interests in both literature and humanities, and earnestly reflecting on my goals for the future, that passion had shifted. As UCLA was my foremost choice, and acceptance rates here are historically low, I wanted to apply to a field in which I could stand out. I presumed it would raise my chance of admission, even though art was not my ideal field of study. Additionally, at every other university I applied to this previous fall, art has not been my primary or secondary major selection. I since realized that the academics, extracurricular activities, volunteer work, and personal statements present on my application are what make me a solid candidate to become a Comparative Literature major at UCLA.

To further expand, I took honors, AP, and college credit english classes all four years of high school and have found myself to be continuously stimulated and challenged. Additionally, by enrolling in many Spanish and art courses, I obtained an interest and appreciation for foreign language and art history. Outside of the classroom, I have engaged in activities that promote collaboration and creativity. During my time in the Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) I have held leadership roles in my community, recruited new members to my chapter, and learned about how to be a mature and innovative team member at national leadership conferences. FCCLA has afforded me a valuable skill set that would make me an asset to the UCLA student body.

I have the utmost respect for this institution and UCLA reigns my top choice even in the face of an initial rejection. I hope you reconsider my application to the College of Letters and Sciences as a Comparative Literature major in light of this new information. Accepting this defeat without exhausting every avenue to success would forever leave me feeling uncertain about the possibility of admission. While there is statistical evidence to suggest the chance of admittance through an appeal is bleak, l firmly believe I am meant to be a part of the Bruin class of 2022.

P.S. I can solve the cube in 47 seconds now.

Has anyone heard back yet?

I really like your style of appeal letter, my biggest concern is that I’m not really seeing any “new or compelling” information other than your major change, which in itself isn’t grounds for a decision reversal. (Sounds more like a LOCI to me). But best of luck, you never know what could happen.

Yeah I totally understand what you’re saying. After learning that art applicants don’t go into the general pool for their alternate choice I just wanted them to see my application once more. Since they didn’t originally assess me for my alt major, and that’s what I want to study, I thought the creative approach to the appeal would show that I have more of an aptitude to study literature. And I guess “new and compelling” info is relative to the person assessing the appeal, so it’s all in their hands. (& maybe they’ve seen Pursuit of Happyness and have a thing for Rubik’s cubes).

I really liked the appeal and the creativity in it. I was wondering what your stats are?

@kawakuri There are individuals who have gotten in without new and compelling information. If you Google it, there’s an example of this one guy’s successful appeal to Berkeley where he just talked about how one of his parents died and going to Berkeley would help him achieve his parent’s wish while still being close to home.
To his credit, he was a hell of a good writer imho. And yeah most likely if you’re not providing new info your chances aren’t looking that great.

Yeah, I’ve read that letter, the HuffPost one? His mom didn’t die, his big reason was he wanted to be close to home to ensure his mom was okay and to be there if something happened. And I totally agree, he’s a really good writer, I liked it a lot.

Appeals are tough, I’m in the same boat, stressing over whether mine’ll go through. (I’m also a Rubik’s Cube solver haha), best of luck to you all!

@10s4life in general, are UCs obligated to accept a select percentage of students from each high school in California? I had someone tell me that UCLA has a number in mind of how many students they’re planning on accepting from each school. If this is true, I have a student at my school who was admitted (even though they rescinded their application twice by email) and I feel that it might’ve taken the opportunity away from the two other students who received supplementals and were qualified.

Not sure if that’s true, kinda doubt it, but if that’s the case then I know of a LOT of people at my school who were accepted into UCLA but are committing to other schools (only 1 person in our grade is taking UCLA’s offer and she’s in for soccer), and that makes me feel a little bit better.

@badsuns Ucla does not have quotas. We accept students based on their merit as applicants which can take many forms. If your friend was trying to withdraw her application it can not be done over email. If she wanted to withdraw she would have needed to use the official applicant portal. That is why she was admitted because she did not withdraw her app.

Any updates?

The UC system as a whole does guarantee a spot to the top 9% of CA public school graduates statewide, and top 9% locally (e.g. in a competitive school you could be in the top 12% of your class but top 9% statewide).

However that guarantee is for “some” UC campus, not a specific campus. So you might wish for UCLA and Cal, but get offered UCM or UCR. I believe UCLA and UCB have the highest proportion of OOS students, so those are likely the most competitive for in-state applicants.

http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/california-residents/index.html

Does anyone think they’ll release some appeal decisions before May 1?

well last year was an anomaly so I think it would be reasonable to assume that they just modified the entire timeline

The UCLA application site is currently down. Does that mean appeal decisions come out later today??