This is a follow up to my older thread. i thought that I would write this up early. Please read in entirely and provide feedback, as this is very important to me. Thank you in advance.


Dear MR/MRS. BLANK

To some school is just a place of educational establishment, for me it was more than that. Believe it or not by the time I applied to Mcmaster I had decided that there wasn’t anything more enjoyable than continuously challenging myself in the field of study I loved the most, science. It would be safe to state that my whole life I have been a striving and in most cases a successful student. At the age of 11 my parents made the decision to move to Canada. This decision was not made for them, but it was made for me. They brought me to this country, so I could achieve whatever I set my mind to, so I would not be limited by any barriers that corruption sets forth. My father ended his 15 year well established medical career and started to work as a laborer here, in order to provide for us. So his sons can attend an institution with their own efforts and their own marks. Without the effects corruption and injustice. My brother and I were his only motivation to keep moving forward, to keep taking the hardships that he took. Over the span of our 8 years in Canada, many of our family relatives have passed away. I could only begin to imagine how hard it was for my parents to deal with something like that again and again thousands of miles away. My family has no relatives here, we are all alone.
Nevertheless, seeing what my parents have invested in me I always strived to do my best, to thank them, while most importantly building my future. During my schools years I have always been a good student. I can’t deny the fact I have had a few bumps on the road, but had never failed a course up until recently. My first year at Mcmaster was home to my worst academic performance due to the circumstances I will explain to the best of my abilities in the following paragraphs.
After 6 years of trying hard in school, I got accepted to Mcmaster University. This was by far the most elated and happy I had ever been in my life. It meant that all the hardships my family and I had to go through were finally starting to get rewarded. After touring the university and a few others, I was convinced that Mcmaster was the right place for me, but my joy was cut short. Around April of 2011 I was rushed to the emergency room with a sharp pain in my abdomen. After a long day, they diagnosed me with appendicitis. I had surgery done the next day, stayed at the hospital for a week and was good to go home. After being home for a month, I got a call from my surgeon. I scheduled an appointment and went to talk to him. I assumed it was to check my stiches. As much as I want to, I will never forget that day. He told me that the biopsy results indicated that I had a 2cm tumor in my appendix, this was the same week I accepted my offer to Mac. He told me it was an extremely rare form of cancer, and I needed more testing immediately. Honestly, at this point my world froze. It’s an unexplainable feeling; you cannot express it in words. Your entire short life comes in front of your eyes, everything you ever worked for, everything you loved, your future, could disappear. It all became meaningless (at least during that specific moment of shock). I asked him if it was curable, and he told me he cannot tell for sure as of now.
In shock I left the office and went home. As hard as it may be to some to believe, I never told my parents. How could I? After all we have been through, you can’t just shatter their hearts. They were still in that “normal life” mind state and I didn’t want to make my misery, their nightmare. I waited out for the summer and left over seas for a “vacation” back home. There I received treatment (heat-chemo), to destroy whatever else is left of the cancer. Because my appendix was perforated and because of the 2cm size of the tumor, it most certainly had spread to other parts of my intestines. After a long summer of treatment and physical recovery I came back to Canada to start university. Before my diagnosis I was very exited and enthusiastic about starting to university. After my diagnosis, everything I saw around me, all my peers were in my eyes everything that I wasn’t because of my illness. I went into depression and fear. Every little unrelated pain made my mind think the worst. I kept asking myself, “why couldn’t I just be healthy”? Even though I was told my cancer was under control and that I needed to eat and live healthy, I couldn’t get it out of my mind. It is really difficult for me to explain this.
When my classes started I tried really hard to ignore what happened in the past and focus on the present. At times it would work, but when I tried and didn’t get the result I wished to get, my illness was the first target to blame. This caused me to get into a cycle of demotivation. Aside from school I also had to try and act as if nothing was wrong to all my friends and had live by myself for the first time in my life. It was a hard year, and I accept that regardless of what happened to my physical and mental health, failing was still my fault. Maybe I should of talked to somebody instead of keeping it all in. There are a lot of maybes at this point, but it’s too late. Towards the end of the year I realized that I could be kicked out of university, the one I worked so hard for. I just stopped thinking about the past and just pushed really hard in school. It’s not that I forgot it, I just pushed it aside temporarily, so I could save the year. I tried really hard the last few weeks. Scored really well on my biology project, and tried my best on other final projects. The two weeks I studied for exams were very hard and tiring, but I couldn’t stop working, because I had fallen so far behind due to what happened. I felt like I did well on my exams, I felt like it was enough but unfortunately it wasn’t. My highest mark was a 10, and the rest ended up being 2s and 0s. The day I checked my marks was the worst I had ever felt in my life. All the negatives added up. What as I supposed to tell my parents now?
Everyone who has ever succeeded has failed at some point in his or her life. After studying hard again, I was reminded of how things used to be in the past. I proved to myself that when I actually try hard, I could do it. Even though I ended up failing, I showed myself just how much the human mind and body can take, how mnay times it can fall and still find the motivation to push forward. This experience has revived my deep love and interest towards biology and science in general. I have learned to accept what happened and keep moving forward. I am currently enrolled in 2 summer classes to bring up my marks. (Biology and Chemistry 1A03). I hope this has thoroughly explained my situation. Given what I have said, I ask you Mr. blank to allow me to pursue my goals and study this interesting field of science at a world renounced University like Mcmaster, I please ask you for another chance.

Sincerely,
John

This is a very well written letter John. I am sorry for what you have gone through. It really puts things into perspective. There are some grammatical errors, but I am sure you will have them fixed by the time you hand in the final copy of your letter. I am no expert, but if I were you I would include more about what I would do in the future to make sure this never happens again. Things like altering my study habits or seeking more help from student services like the student wellness center and seeking more support for your family and correcting things before you see a problem. I think whoever reads your letter will be impressed by the fact that you took responsibility for your situation.

Good Luck with everything

Very touching John, anyone reading this will try to understand your plight and hopefully sympathize and you will get reinstated. But I agree wtih Bao, write something about how you're dealing with this and how you're working to prevent any future breakdowns (eg, working with a psychologist, taking meds). Hope all's well's now, though

Will do guys, thanks a lot for the feedback.

Agreed - I hope that whoever reads this letter will understand your situation and give you a second chance.

That being said, there are also a lot of grammar errors in there that will need to be fixed. You also have quite a few sentence fragments in there. They may have been for dramatic effect, but I'm not sure if whoever reads this will think of it that way or think of it as your inability to form proper, coherent sentences.

I also agree with the above posts - add more about how you will prevent this from happening next year. Oh and add a space in between your paragraphs. (Might be just me but I find it easier to distinguish between the different "topics" in your letter and it makes it much easier to read since it looks organized instead of like one huge blob)

Good luck!

McMaster has two capital M's.
yeah i stopped reading there

Great feedback guys, its really helping. The deadline is in a while. I just thought I would give it a shot early on. Will review it multiple times. Again, I appreciate the grew feedback.

The letter is well written, but like people said, there are some grammar mistakes - most noticeably, missing commas. One of the latter paragraphs has an 'of' instead of a 'have' ("Maybe I should HAVE talked to someone"). I've just skimmed your letter, so I can't really point out all that I noticed (sorry!). However, revise it a few more times, try reading it out loud to see how you would naturally pause it (for the commas), and make changes accordingly.

Best of luck, though! I'm sure they'll understand and that things will start looking up for you! (:

John, I sympathize with you and I hope you get a second chance. Having said that though, my opinion is that your letter is not sufficient to gain reinstatement.

There are two main goals you are aiming to achieve with a reinstatement letter:
1. Demonstrate that your poor academic performance was due to circumstances beyond your control.
2. Prove that those previous circumstances will no longer negatively impact your education, if you were to be reinstated.

Your letter definitely satisfies criteria number one, but does not meet the second requirement. You must remember that the individual who reads your letter will likely have read hundreds if not thousands of similar letters in the past, and will be desensitized to your situation, so playing the sympathy card won't get you anywhere. You need to state how you have gotten over your "cycle of demotivation". What steps have you taken to deal with your issue? That's what they will care about. Saying you tried hard really hard the last few weeks of school and did well, so from here on out you're going to continue to do well because you know you can, isn't going to cut it.

As I mentioned, the administration will analyze your situation and look at the facts. You won't get back into school due to them feeling sorry for you. Cut the entire first paragraph, it is pointless to the person who will read your letter. I get that you're trying to convey that your parent's sacrifice motivates you to do well, but that motivation obviously hasn't prevented your current situation, so why would it going forward?

I'm sorry if I come across as blunt, I'm just trying to help you by being as clear and straightforward as possible.

Haha, good thing I posted this here I will take all the advice and improve the letter. Once again I can't thank you guys enough for all the help.

yeah in case you're not that great at editing, the last sentence says McMaster is a 'world renounced University' --> change that to renowned lol

oh..autocorrect lol

Btw, do they ever let you bypass the 1 year off requirement? I understand that it can help me recover, but I have been recovering mentally since the end of school. I signed up for a cancer counselling program at Sunny Brooke. I will be attending meetings and 1 on 1s the entire summer. Now that I think about it I should have mentioned that in my letter :/ ( I could most likely provide proof of registration for this too).

Got any medical documentation about some sort of condition you have? Bust that shit out.

Originally Posted by Freija

Got any medical documentation about some sort of condition you have? Bust that shit out.

This. They're definitely going to want to see proof of any medical condition you mention in your letter.

Also, once you've revised this letter a few times, feel free to inbox it to me and I'll take an in-depth look at it. I'll edit it and see if there is anything you've missed or should expand on or cut, etc.

Remember to keep it straightforward and to the point. You don't need to get into your family's past or anything, what they really want to know is what stopped you from doing well in the previous year and what you're doing to ensure that that won't happen again.