Senior Year - April/May

A few students who had just received rejection letters stopped by, asking about the appeal process, and/or if they should go for it.... Here are a couple of my thoughts on this.

Generally speaking, the admission decision is final; chances of a successful appeal are slim. You should not appeal simply because you are upset with the rejection, and an appeal should not move forward if your general message is something like, "You clearly made a mistake because you failed to recognize how great I am." However, a couple of circumstances may warrant an appeal.

1) You have significant new information to provide. Things like winning a major award or honor, getting back test scores that are significantly better than the ones you originally submitted.

2) You have just learned that a procedural or clerical error was made. For example, SAT scores reported incorrectly, inaccurate information on your transcript.

Examples for no grounds for appeal: Your application needs to be taken another look by another admission counselor; Friends got in with similar qualifications (SAT score/Rank/GPA etc); Rank/GPA and scores fall within the published admissions criteria; Convinced that you are a perfect match for the school; Offered admission to some "better" schools, so their rejection doesn’t make sense; Felt the decision was unfair; Family legacy deserves a reconsideration.