"wait for my new test scores" - My letter of appeal to USF

So I got that painstaking thin envelop in the mail and i got denied admission in to USF. This is my appeal letter, will you help me revise it.

I think I can speak for most high school seniors and say that applying to colleges can be very stressful. In fact your whole senior year can be quite hectic from keeping grades up in those advance classes, to all the standardized testing, and applying for college. I didn't know too much about applying to colleges until I was talking to some friends about it and why I shouldn't just try and apply. And it only took a tour of USF to turn my act around.

I have already taking both an ACT and SAT, but scoring poorly on both. But really I am not that great of a standardized test taker. And on top of that there were a lot of things going on in my mind. With these tough economic hardships losing a job can be tough on a family physically and mentally. And never really thinking that it would happen to me my mother had lost her job. This was very hard because she was the main income of the family, with my dad not having much of an income it was going to be hard finding a way to nourish a family of eight. Going in to the test was very hard because for the past few weeks I couldn't sleep very well. And with all these things on my mind it was difficult to concentrate on the test alone.

Also not knowing much about applying to college I was looking at applying to college like applying for a job. All I was trying to do was get my name in the eyes of USF admission workers. But with two very low scores I was hoping to get differed rather than denied.

But now thing are starting to brighten. Since my mother has gotten a different job she put me into an ACT tutoring course. I have already taken my test on February 6, 2010 and am just waiting on the scores to get here. I have been excelling in track and field, as well as being asked to join the National Scholars of High School. I have been keeping my grades up nothing below a C and will be sending you a copy of my progress report as well as some recommendation letters from some teachers and my swim coach.

I understand the admissions office must receive over thousands of applications. But, when I sent mine in I really didn't have much to offer or make me stand out from the rest. And all I am asking is wait for my new test scores to come in and recheck my application status. Because I am willing to do anything to spread the USF motto of "Truth and Wisdom" throughout the community of Tampa.

P.S.
I am gonna need to mail this out tomorrow, so please help me!

yea, before you send this out, definitely get a teacher to review grammar. It's deferred, not differed.


what do you mean by this? elaborating on why USF is so important to you is definitely more worthwhile than complaining about your senior year.


Maybe try to sound less like you're complaining. Sure, some people are simply horrible test takers, but that shouldn't be an excuse. I don't think that saying this will help you get sympathy from the admin.


lol why? The job loss was a legitimate "excuse", but this is NOT. You could instead say that you've tried to help your parents by searching for a job (idk if it's true), and that'll sound much better than "not sleeping well". Anxiety is part of the test, and if you succumb to that, it just means that you can't take pressure.


why? with two VERY low scores you should get denied. So why deferred? I'd suggest replacing very low by unsatisfactory


I have no idea what you mean by this. Spread the motto? how?


well then, why are you surprised of getting denied?

The overall tone of your essay sounds like you understand that you've failed, and you want a second chance, which isn't bad, but you said it in a way that makes you look bad. Instead, I'd appeal by highlighting your STRENGTHS, and explaining why you didn't do well on the standardized tests (while emphasizing that you are far more intelligent than the tests suggest b/c your grades or whatever), and end by saying that you've taken measures of getting higher scores, and that you guarantee that these new scores will be a much more accurate picture of your abilities. Remember, you want to make them go BACK on their decision, not CONFIRM it and then ask for a second chance.