So I recently lost my scholarship due to my grades being well below the required GPA, and I have begun the process of appealing my scholarship. Below is my personal statement appealing the loss; please let me know if there are any weird phrasings or anything that I need to fix! Thank you in advance.
Dear Undergraduate Admissions Scholarship Committee,
I am writing this letter of appeal in hopes that you reconsider your decision to void my scholarship for the 2015 Spring semester. The decision not to renew my scholarship was based on the fact that I failed to meet the minimum academic GPA of 3.0; my GPA by the end of my probation period was a 2.47. I fully acknowledge that the loss of my scholarship was entirely my fault, and regardless of your response to this letter, I thank the committee for granting me the scholarship in the first place, as well as taking the time to read this letter.
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Hi, hmbooker. I really like the spirit of your letter, but I do think it's rather long. They probably don't have much time to read appeal letters. I'm going to try to shorten it, using phrases that capture your thoughts in more succinct ways. My goal is also to get to the point faster. Here are my suggestions:
I am writing this letter of appeal in hopes that youwould like to request that the scholarship committee reconsider yourits decision to void my scholarship for the 2015 Springspring semester. I acknowledge that my GPA (2.47) is lower than that required for the scholarship (3.0), but I feel that I have valid reasons for this and am confident that steps I have recently taken will lead to improved grades.The decision not to renew my scholarship was based on the fact that I failed to meet the minimum academic GPA of 3.0; my GPA by the end of my probation period was a 2.47. I fully acknowledge that the loss of my scholarship was entirely my fault, and regardless of your response to this letter, I thank the committee for granting me the scholarship in the first place, as well as taking the time to read this letter.
One of the main reasons I was unable to maintain a 3.0 GPA was that I did not enjoy the mechanical engineering classes I was taking at the beginning of my college experience. I (was a big fan of VS. excelled at ) math(and science? physics?)in high school, so I thought that mechanical engineering would be an ideal major.Although I had a suspicion that engineering was wrong for me byBy the end of my first semester,at The University of Alabama, it should have been clear to me that Mechanical Engineering, my old major, was completely wrong for me. Though I enjoyed the concepts I learned in high school, I found I had no passion for the often confusing mathematics that went into engineering. However, my pride got the better of me, andI persevered, unwilling to quit despite the trouble I was having staying engaged with the material.attempted to continue pursuing a degree in Mechanical Engineering, even though the coursework continued to grow more and more difficult as I grew less and less interested. School, something that I often excelled at and loved in high school, became difficult and dreadful, and I soon began to find myself overwhelmed with classwork. Still, I continued to tell myself this is what I wanted to do, and I honestly thought I could go through with it.By the time I fully admitted that I had made a mistake in my choice of major, it was too late to rehabilitate my GPA.Although I was able to pull my GPA up in the Spring semester of 2014, I still wasn't able to meet the required 3.0 GPA.
Another important factor in my inability to maintain a 3.0 GPA was a less-than-idealDuring this past Fall semester, I knew I had to try harder and get my grades up by the end of the probation period. However, as the coursework increased, I began to give up. Not only that, but my living situation became more difficult to handle . My first set of roommates enjoyed partying, which made studying difficult in the dorm. A subsequent, off-campus roommate (not a student) delivered a baby while living with us, and the stress of having a newborn in the apartment along with the frequent visits from her extended family made focusing on academics almost an impossibility.
During the Fall 2013 and Spring 2014 semesters, I had lived in a dorm with other honors students; this past year, for Fall 2014 and Spring 2015, I have lived in an apartment with at least two others. It started off well when there two UA students living with me, though their frequent partying sometimes left me distracted when I should have been studying. However, due to personal reasons of her own, one of my roommates suddenly moved out and was replaced with a non-student who was expecting a baby. Things only got worse as parties became even more frequent, and when there weren't parties, the new roommates' family began staying the night, day after day, until they were essentially living at the apartment. I began to feel less and less in control, and the stress of having to live with three roommates, a three-year-old, an infant, two older women, a young man or two, and any friends they invited over left me feeling as though I could not fully function in my own apartment. The constant barrage of voices shouting and the wailing of a toddler's tantrum at nearly all hours of the day and night kept me stressed and wholly unwilling to do schoolwork for a subject for which I had lost almost all passion. By around the middle of the semester, I had almost completely given up on school and allowed my grades to drop, bringing my overall GPA to an embarrassing 2.47.
I need to go now, but will try to do more later...Or perhaps someone else can pick up where I left off. Hope this has helped you!
OK, I'm back. Here are more suggestions:
Despite these obstacles, I hold myself responsible for my poor academic performance.I realize now that I should have sought help from my professors, tutors, or the university's advisors as soon as I began to sense that engineering was not a good match for me. Additionally, I should have never allowed myself to stay in living situations that were so harmful to my studies.Regardless of my roommates, it was still my responsibility for keeping up in school. It was entirely my fault that I let my pride get in the way of seeing that Mechanical Engineering wasn't something I was passionate about and switching majors while I still had the scholarship, as well as letting my roommates' many antics distract me from my goals. I also never utilized the many resources The University of Alabama has to offer, like advisors, tutors, or my own professors as I fell behind in class. I understand my mistakes, andI have learned some important life lessons. This semester, I have worked hard to remedy themthe mistakes I made in the past .
First of all, I changed my major. My decision to pursue engineering was based largely on the field's prestige and reputation for providing future job opportunities. After some soul-searching, I realized thathave begun to work towards my goals to graduate with more vigor. Although I chose Mechanical Engineering going into college, mostly for the prestige and many job opportunities, my real passion has always been in the humanities, particularly history. Ever since changing my major to History,I have since changed my major to History. Because my family cannot afford full out-of-state tuition, I was only able to attend school half-time during this 2015 Spring semester, but in that time I have become much more active in class. Where I used to sit quietly and zone out every time I didn't understand something, I now enjoy listeninglistened attentively to the teachers, and often participateparticipated in class discussions. I am pleased to say that I finished this semester withA'searned As infrom both of the (history?) classes that I took this semester, and am looking forward to what future semesters hold.(sentence moved) .
I have also become pro-active in addressing the problems with my living situation. When my roommates' behavior worsened (destroying apartment property, lease violations), I filed I took a real interest in my classes and began thoroughly enjoying the work I put into them after class. Rather than going back to my ever-chaotic apartment, I began making use of the school libraries and other places to study on campus. Although my living situation has gotten somewhat worse, with one of my roommates' friends smashing windows open and cutting holes through the door to our currently unoccupied room to use that room for their own purposes, I've begun taking control of the situation by filing complaints and a transfer request with the apartment complex management. for lease violations and a transfer request to the apartment complex management, and I no longer let their distractions dictate the trajectory of my own life. I am pleased to say that I finished this semester with A's from both of the classes I took, and I am looking forward to my next semester.I've also found reliably quiet places to study, so I am no longer distracted by others.
I love the University of Alabama, but without a scholarship to offset the out-of-state tuition,My family and I cannot afford out-of-state tuition, so without this scholarship, I may have to seriously consider transferringtransfer to a college in my home state ,of Georgia, to be able to continue affording college . However, I absolutely love it here at UA, and As a History major and an aspiring archivist, I think that I can well represent this university. I understand that I squandered the opportunity given to me, but I have learned from my mistakes, and I hope that you will give me one more chance. If I am granted this scholarship again, I will not take it for granted, and I will continue to study hard to keep it in the future. I sincerely hope that the committee will reconsider theirits decision and reinstate my scholarship for the Spring semester.
Again,I Thank youthe Undergraduate Admissions Scholarship Committee for taking the time to read this letter, as well as providing me the opportunity to explain my situation and the reasons for making the mistakes I made.
I hope that has helped you!
ChristineB, thank you so much for all of your help! Your thorough suggestions have really helped me get the word count down while keeping the tone and meaning behind the words intact. Thanks again!