Appealing an Admissions Decision

Tis the season of College Admissions Decisions. Students are beginning to hear from colleges on whether they have been accepted or denied admission. It's a life-changing moment for some students, and many feel as if their destiny is about to begin. As jubillant as some students are with an acceptance letter, there are equally emotional moments of grief as students are turned down from life-long dream colleges.

What option does a student have if he receives a denial of admission to his first choice college? Is there any hope of appeal? It depends on the college, the major and what the student has to put into the appeal. Most universities discourage appeals, and grant few, if any. But the University of California undergraduate admission website does give information on what will be reviewed if a student does appeal. "New and compelling information" is the only hope a student has. This is good advice for an appeal to any university.

To determine if a student has new or compelling information, he needs to first look at the original application. Is everything there that he submitted? Nearly all college applications are now submitted electronically, and frequently I find students who don’t even have a printed copy of their application sent back in November.

They honestly don’t know what was on that application!

Students can access their applications on the college website. Print a copy and confirm that all courses are listed, that all the awards, activities, volunteer hours, employment, etc. are there. Verify that the student directed the College Board or the ACT to send the test scores to the college. If the college required letters of recommendation, contact the admissions office to be certain that those letters arrived and are in the student’s application file. Review the essays or personal statements. Try to determine if the student left something important out of the application that he had intended to send, or should have sent.

Then the student should evaluate what new information he has to tell the college that is germane to admission. Being named a National Merit Scholar or class valedictorian might be considered new information, but keep in mind that at a highly selective university, these kinds of honors will be common, so that alone won’t be helpful. New information might include a new, higher SAT score or a community college course you forgot to list. Achieving some kind of talent recognition such as being named to an Olympic team would be considered new information, if it happened since you submitted the application.

Compelling information is the other option for students to submit an appeal. Each year I find myself astounded at what a high school senior thinks is compelling information. The fact that you have always wanted to go there and that you will be a fourth generation to attend the highly selective college is not compelling. Compelling information must be just that – compelling the admissions office to reevaluate your application because of this extradordinary information.

Compelling information is that you are homeless, but you’re still getting straight A’s; and you just found out that you have free housing a few blocks from their campus. Compelling must be serious, related to your application or college plans, and above all it must be something truthful, that you can document.

As students struggle with college dreams shattering with the click of an opened an email, parents often wonder how they could have helped their children achieve these goals. It’s never too early to start talking with kids about college, about career aspirations, about dreams and what it will take to achieve them. Many college denials could have been prevented with prudent and early college planning.