Rejecting Your Rejection Letter: Can You Appeal a College Rejection?
Credit: Margaret Attridge- As college decisions are released, students have joined a trend of responding to rejection letters, rejecting their college rejection.
- Admissions experts say the trend won’t result in any change in admission status.
- However, a handful of institutions allow students with “new and compelling information” to appeal their college rejection.
Students on social media are sending letters rejecting their college rejections. It’s a joke, but — while rare — some schools actually do admit students after initially rejecting them.
Sia Sama, a sophomore computer science major at the University of California, Berkeley, was rejected from all five University of California (UC) campuses she applied to, including the campus she currently attends.
Berkeley is one of the most sought-after and prestigious campuses in the UC system. Out of the more than 124,000 first-year applicants, only 13,700 students were admitted for the fall 2024 semester — an 11% admittance rate.
Sama knew the admissions statistics but refused to let go of her dream to attend Berkeley. She learned through TikTok that the campus offered an admissions appeal process and decided to give it a chance. Eleven days before the start of the fall semester, she received an acceptance letter.
“Everyone was like, ‘You know appealing has about a 2% acceptance rate,’ and I was like, ‘If there’s a 2% acceptance rate, at least 2% of people make it,'” she said.
Berkeley, along with the eight other undergraduate campuses in the UC system, allows students not selected for admission to appeal their decision. Berkeley’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions website states that “few” appeals are granted, but students with “new and compelling information” can submit an appeal.
“There is a bona fide process to [appeal] at some schools, [but] they are the exceptions that prove the rule that it is not something that can be done,” Jayson Weingarten, senior admissions consultant with Ivy Coach, told BestColleges.
Weingarten said that the majority of top colleges and universities do not accept admissions appeals, with some notable exceptions, including the UC system, the University of Southern California, and the University of Texas at Austin.
What to Do When You Get a Rejection Letter
Falling in love with your dream school may be inevitable, and if you end up with an admission denial, it can be tough to reconcile with the fact that you won’t be on campus that fall.
Weingarten says the “healthiest option” for students who’ve been rejected is to focus on all the schools where they have been either accepted, waitlisted, or deferred — instead of the ones where they were denied.
For the students who want to send back a rejection letter of their own, Maria Laskaris, a senior private counselor at Top Tier Admissions, says that while it might prove therapeutic, it will have no bearing on the school’s decision about your admission status.
“You might feel better dashing off a rejection to the rejection, but no, it will not change the outcome of your decision,” she said.
Should I Appeal the Decision?
Weingarten says admissions appeals are more likely to work at less-selective schools, such as those with acceptance rates “above 33%” and ongoing or rolling admissions, and those that are more regionally known.
Each school will have its own allowances and process for appeals, so it’s important to review your institution’s specific rules before submitting an appeal.
Expert Advice for Writing an Appeal
If you decide to appeal your rejection, Weingarten recommends keeping the appeal short and providing new material not included in your original application.
“You don’t want to become a pen pal with the admissions office [and] you don’t want to be very desperate and needy,” he said. “Whatever the quote is about doing the same thing over and over again with the same results being insanity. Just submitting your application as-is again is kind of insane.”
Sia Sama, Berkeley sophomore, successfully appealed her admissions decision.
Sama decided to submit an appeal to UC Irvine and Berkeley. Her 500-word appeal included information about achievements and programs she had been involved in since she originally applied, her GPA, and her class rank.
Sama added that she did not initially include any perspective in her original application about her struggles in high school, including her family life and growing up with a single immigrant mother.
“Admissions officers didn’t have the full picture. They saw that I did good, but they didn’t see what I was facing, what I was going through while I achieved everything,” she said. “… Overall, just reiterating I was a hard worker in high school, I’m continuing to be a hard worker, and I deserve a place at your university.”
Sama recommends submitting an appeal soon after receiving a rejection, as appeals deadlines are usually only a few weeks after decisions are released. For the UC system, the deadline is April 15.
Students may not know the status of their appeal until August, and Berkeley’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions cautions them not to delay accepting an admission offer from another college or university.
Sama had not heard back from UC Irvine or Berkeley, the two schools she submitted appeals to, until later in the summer. It wasn’t until she had enrolled in a full course load at her community college and attended orientation that she finally got her acceptance letter.
“I am really glad that I didn’t listen to anyone who told me that it wouldn’t work … and made my own decision and took my own shot, even if I heard all of these negative comments,” she said. “I try to, whatever I do, make my own decision, even if someone says something’s not possible, I make it possible, and I go for it anyway.”