If you’ve just been rejected to the UC school of your dreams and want to appeal, knowing how to write the UC appeal letter is crucial. But first, let’s consider a few points before getting to the good stuff.

As much as the tears flow heavily, please, please consider the math of the admissions appeal process. I am not saying this just to make people feel better. I am trying to be as objective about my perspective of appeal letters as I possibly can:

Yes. Yes it is worth writing an appeal letter to the UC schools. It is also very difficult to get accepted.

Why? Well, let’s look at a few stats and make a clear analysis of it.

Here is the latest data available (as Cal has not provided data for 2023-24 yet. For the 2022-23 admissions cycle, 1,240 students applied for appeal. Of them, only 4 were accepted.

Let’s do some math here, shall we?

4/1,240 = 0.32%

For comparison, let’s look at Berkely just a few years ago. In 2020, Berkeley accepted 34 students out of 1,264 appeals. That’s a dip from 2.69% to 0.32% in just 2 years. Thus, UC Berkeley’s appeal acceptance rates have dipped over time, making admission via appeal harder every year.

Ouch. Talk about brutal.

Nonetheless, this is no reason to be afraid.

You still have the appeal letter to help save your admissions chances. And, you can be certain that whoever the 4 students were who wrote their UCB appeal letters during the 2023-24 admissions cycle probably had stellar appeal letters. And, you will too.

This guide is dedicated to making you the .32% of students accepted. It will guide you step-by-step to writing a solid UC appeal letter that makes you the minority of students who get in. It’s harder now than ever before. So, take notes and listen carefully throughout this guide!

How to Write the UC Appeal Letter

Table of Contents

1. Provide Different Information From Your First Application
2. Prove You’re A Better Candidate Than The Rest of the Applicants
3. Your College Appeal Letter Must Be Better Than Your First Application
4. Stay Focused –Stick To Only A Few Points
5. Get To The Point FAST
6. UC Is MANDATORY For Your Because…
7. Accomplishments, Hardships, and Academic Successes

1. Provide Different Information From Your First Application

It’s important to note that most of the application decisions are made in the first round. Once the waitlist is over, most schools want to conclude their admissions season. That means writing an appeal letter to a UC school would put you in a position where they are most probably already satisfied with their school’s current enrollment numbers.

Don’t worry though! They have to read your appeal letter no matter how much they don’t want to!

Because the admissions committee will be looking at your appeal letter with a more critical eye, it is important that you remember to give different information from what you first wrote in your original application. If you already wrote about your academic mishaps during the winter quarter and your familial issues, they insufficient to get you accepted. You will need information that can possibly turn the tides and make you a good candidate worthy enough of the UC school you’re applying for.

2. Prove You’re A Better Candidate Than The Rest of the Applicants

When considering how to write the UC appeal letter, you should remember that whatever you are writing is also competing with the rest of the admissions pool. Surely there are much fewer people writing appeal letters than there are people applying for regular admissions, but your chances will be much slimmer than before.

Now, to stand out from everyone else you need to have a reason that makes your case special. Why are you a special case that doesn’t belong in the rejection pile? Or, why is your GPA and extracurriculars a special case compared to the rest of the applicants? What makes you the exception? Put those into your appeal letter.

Also, don’t refer to other applicants directly. That is, don’t say, “other people are ‘x’, whereas I am ‘y’.” You should consider how other people will write their UC appeal letter and be unique from their writings.

3. Your College Appeal Letter Must Be Better Than Your First Application

Sort of a reiteration of what we mentioned earlier: make sure whatever you are writing in your appeal letter is more convincing than you said before.

The fact that what you wrote originally was rejected must mean that the content of your application was insufficient in getting you a spot in their class. You may be lacking in quality in one aspect, so you need to compensate for it. If you find that you are unsure of figuring out what aspect that is and what you need to write about in your UC appeal letter, you can contact us and we’ll get back to you ASAP with our thoughts!

4. Stay Focused –Stick To Only A Few Points

One of the most common mistakes people make when writing the UC appeal letters is the panic. They panic, and when they do, they try to use everything in their arsenal to convince the admissions officers that they are a good candidate. This means explaining away their grades, justifying their SAT/ACT scores, describing their AP/IB classes, talking about the extracurriculars they did and did not do, and every possible tragic life story they can conjure before the deadline.

This is understandable; after all, they have to think of something to write that may be that one reason that gets them accepted.

However, you shouldn’t do this.

Instead, keep your points to only around 3 reasons; you should not exceed anything past 4. Remember, the fewer points you have, the more space you have for elaboration.

5. Get To The Point FAST

When writing the UC appeal letter, you want to quickly get to the main reasons why you should be accepted. Remember what we mentioned a little earlier ago: admissions offices typically consider the UC application finished once the waitlist season has ended. As such, the admissions office will take a look at your appeal letter with more criticism; so, don’t waste their time!

We would suggest making the introduction of your appeal letter as short as possible. We would also heavily advise making your letter have as short walls of text as possible. For instance, if your entire appeal letter consists of 2 paragraphs about 8 lines long, you may want to reduce or separate them.

A favorable length is around 4-5 paragraphs. Each paragraph should be 4 lines long or fewer.

6. UC Is MANDATORY For You Because…

If you are writing your UC appeal letter, the admissions office will be expecting that you are applying as a candidate who wants to get accepted VERY MUCH. Why else will one go out of their way to write an entire appeal letter rather than accept their rejection letter?

As such, you want to write your appeal letter as if you would not accept a college acceptance letter from anywhere else. This is a good exercise I like to give to my clients when they are working on writing their UC appeal letters:

“Why would attending this particular UC school be a better choice than attending Harvard, Yale, or Princeton?”

If you ask yourself this, you’ll find that the only acceptable answer is to say that the UC school you are writing your appeal letter to has something that transcends anything else any other school can give you. Perhaps you are working on a project that requires vital knowledge or training before you can execute it, or you have a startup that requires training from a specific program in the school. Whichever the reason, make sure that it is absolutely clear that not attending the UC school you are applying for would be devastating to your future endeavors.

7. Major Accomplishments, Life Hardships, and Academic Successes

These are typically going to be the main chunk of your content. In terms of how to write the UC appeal essay well, you want you major accomplishments, life hardships, and academic successes to be the core reasons that make you a good candidate.

Typically every application will be missing at least one of the three information.

For instance, you may have a competitive GPA that meets just a bit above the average accepted GPA for UC Berkeley. However, you struggled a lot in the courses in your future intended major and earned a B in both sophomore and junior year courses. This may paint a bad light in your application, and could have been the reason for your rejection. However, you may have had a personal struggle with your familial affairs that made earning an A in both years virtually impossible.

As another example, you may have had a strong accomplishment in reaching a milestone in a particular club that you founded. In this case, you would want to explain just exactly why that accomplishment makes you a great candidate for the UC school you are appealing for.

Are you still wondering about how to write the UC appeal letter? Concerned you won’t get accepted? Have any burning questions about the appeal process in general? You don’t want to go into this blind. Don’t take a risk, especially when your future is at stake. Be sure you get as much help as you can. Our admissions experts and I offer a free consultation to help answer any questions you may help as well as appeal letter essay services.