University Recovery
Dear Michael McCawley, My name is {} and I am writing this appeal in accordance to the cancellation of my admission at University of California Santa Cruz. I was informed that the reason for such cancellation was due to the failing grade I received in my Health 11 college class, which I retook during my second semester of senior year. My performance in this class and even in my senior year of high school was not a case of the so called “senioritis” but fell due to a downturn in my family’s economic stability.
I took a job at my local McDonalds in hopes of earning money to pay for my books or anything I would need to spend on while in college. That use of my work would not turn out as I thought; my father was laid off his job and, being an immigrant, has not been able to find a job to this day. My mother, as well an immigrant, was able to receive welfare but not enough to pay for all bills, rent, and at times food, for my siblings and I. This is when I began working as much as I could because it was either earn what I did before and let my family starve with no roof, or step up and help pay bills and buy groceries.
I would ask my manager to allow me to work my full eight hours a day and giving me weekends as well. I needed to do this in order to help support my family. This hectic work schedule along with my high achieving school schedule would clash. The tiresome rigor and loss of energy at work would lead me to miss assignments in my regular classes as well as my college classes. Despite that I was still able to graduate as third in my class with high honors and become master of ceremonies for my graduation.
In my other college class I was able to earn a grade of an A because it was focused on class work and finals, whereas my health class was centralized on homework assignments, so even if I did well on test, which I did, I still did not have a high enough percentage to pass the class because my time was taken up to work for my family. I believe that it would not be fair to judge a student’s efficacy by one class that they failed while they have excelled in all other areas, especially for a circumstance that could not be helped.
I took the initiative to attempt to make up the grade from my junior year but due to the circumstance I have explained could not do it. Even so this does not show all I can do. During this summer I also took the initiative to enroll in classes at University of California Los Angeles where I did very well receiving a grade of a B in each class, unfortunately due to a lack of financial aid I was not able to make these grades official.
This is my true reflection of how well I could do at a UC campus and shows that by reinstating me it would not be lowering the standards of UCSC but a second chance for me to prove that I belong at this school. I know I will excel because I will have no financial distractions because I will be receiving financial aid and will be able to focus on my studies especially with the learning environment that UCSC offers. I hope you take my appeal strongly into consideration for reinstatement. Thank you for your time and I hope to hear from you soon. Thank you,
