What does it mean if I was deferred from my early school and how should I approach the rest of my application?
What does it mean if I was deferred from the school that I applied to early?
When you submit an early application to a university, there are three possible outcomes – accepted, rejected, or deferred. The first two outcomes are very clear, accepted means that you’re into the school and rejected means that you are not, but the third case, deferral, is more complicated.
Basically when a school defers your early application, it means that they will still consider you during the regular decision round of applications (usually applications due January 1st). So even though you were not accepted through your early application, you still will have a chance at getting accepted during the regular round of applications.
However, being deferred does not lead to a good chance of getting accepted during the regular decision round. Universities usually defer anywhere from 30-70% of all early applications to the regular round, so just by applying the school’s normal acceptance rate for regular decision applications, deferred students have a lower chance of getting in than early applicants.
Additionally, being deferred puts you at a disadvantage against regular decision applicants because you have to send your application on November 1st while they send it more than two months later. This gives them more time to boost their resume with senior year activities, and the ability to boost their GPA and show an upwards grade trend with senior year grades.
What all of this adds up to is that at top schools like the Ivies, deferred students have acceptance rates as low as 4-5%, and even at schools like Boston College, the rate can be as low as 15%.
Luckily, there is a way that you can improve your chances at getting in after being deferred (see the next question).
What steps can I take to improve my chances at the school that deferred me?
The first thing to do is to improve your application in the areas of test scores, academics, and resume.
Test Scores
For test scores, your early school will accept an updated SAT score from the January exam, so you still have five weeks to prepare for that exam. Even a 50-point increase in your SAT score will provide a substantial boost to your application, so if you have any room for improvement in that area (i.e. if you have less than a 2350 when targeting the Ivies), retaking the SAT is strongly encouraged.
If you are looking to improve your SAT score quickly (five weeks is not a lot of time!), my company Admissions Hero offers an SAT Crash Course that quickly covers the best strategies for each section of the SAT. Students who complete this course see score increases of 100-200 points after just 6-8 hours of review. If you would like to know more about our SAT program, please let me know at johan@admissionshero.com, and I can give you a personalized recommendation.
Academics
Additionally, you should also maintain your grades at either your current GPA or better, at least until the end of your first semester / second quarter / second trimester – wherever your school’s cutoff is for mid-year grades that are sent to colleges. While schools don’t consider your grades from the second semester of Senior Year, your early school will ask to see your mid-year grades, so you can’t afford to slack off.
Resume
The final thing to do is to continue to build your resume. Whether that means starting a new initiative in one of your existing activities or creating a new project, beefing up your resume with activities from the first half of senior year is very important in the deferral process. That being said, your focus should be on building off of things that are already on your resume. Schools will be suspicious if you suddenly join a bunch of new clubs that have no connection to other activities on your resume in December after getting deferred, and doing this will actually hurt your chances.
Communicating with the School
In addition to improving yourself as an applicant, there are also certain steps you can take to communicate with your early school in order to maximize your chances. These steps are
Contacting the local admissions counselor
Writing the deferral letter
Sending the school an additional recommendation letter
Your first step in this process is to call the school’s admissions office to determine if they will accept additional rec letters as well as where to send supplemental materials. You have your own admissions representative that controls your region and primarily handled your application. If you do not already know this person/have their contact info, you can request it from the school.
After you have sent in the supplemental materials, you can give a formal phone call to your local admissions counselor and explain that you have sent additional materials because of your continued interest about a week after doing so. You also should ask if they require you to send anything else to help in evaluating your application.
Throughout February, you may remain in contact with the officer (especially if you are working on a project that has constant updates). The key here is balance, however; you do not want to continuously call the office and annoy the admissions officers. You do however want to check up on all of your submitted materials, as well as ensure that there is nothing else that the office might want in evaluating your application.
The Deferral Letter
The purpose of the deferral letter is to (1) illustrate continued commitment to the school, (2) indicate an increased level of competency since October, and (3) distinguish oneself from the other thousands of deferred applicants and new applicants in the regular round. The letter should fit on one-page maximum.
Many schools have websites where you can submit the deferral letter, however many other schools will prefer that you mail the letter to their office of admission. Call your school and ask where you can send or upload supplemental materials, and follow their instructions.
Additional Recommendation
If the local admissions officer is willing to accept an additional letter of recommendation (make sure you ask this when you call about where to send materials), determine if you have any options. An ideal recommendation letter will cover a new update since November (hopefully an update about something that was mentioned in the wait list letter).
This letter should follow the same guidelines as other recommendation letters. It should be no more than one page and heavily rely on anecdotes and specific examples of your talents and experiences.
It is extremely important to get all of these steps correct (particularly steps 2 and 3). Admissions Hero offers a personalized deferral counseling service, where we help you strategize for how to approach your deferral as well as help you prepare, edit, and perfect your deferral letter and additional recommendation. If you would like to know more about our deferral program, please email me at johan@admissionshero.com, and I can give you a free consultation to figure out the right post-deferral approach for you.
I have good grades, a great SAT/ACT score, and a strong resume… so why was I deferred?
Every year, my company Admissions Hero works with tons of students in this exact scenario, with 2100+ SAT scores, very strong GPAs, and excellent extracurricular activities. In our experience, there are really two things that hold such students back.
The Common App and supplemental essays
The applications section on the Common Application
Essays
This is the single most important factor that causes top applicants, particularly Chinese and Asian ones, to be rejected, deferred, or waitlisted. Many of you are excellent writers in school or outside of the classroom, but for college admissions, it isn’t good enough to simply be a good writer. A strong applications essay is still well written, but it also needs to convey the themes that college admissions officers select for in applicants. This is where a lot of top students fail – they just don’t have the correct essay for the college admissions process.
Common App Activities Section
Another big mistake that we see is when students don’t optimize the honors or activities section on the Common App or school-specific application. This is a really important part of the app, since it is the only way colleges will know about all the amazing things you did in high school, and so filling out these sections incorrectly will harm your application. You can have an excellent resume, but it won’t do you any good if it isn’t displayed well on the application.
Admissions Hero helps students review their Activities and Honors lists for the Common App – as well as for school-specific applications such as MIT’s – so if you have any questions about your own, please let me know at johan@admissionshero.com.
How do I approach my other applications now that I have been deferred?
You should still take all the steps for academics, test scores, and resume that were mentioned above. Additionally, it will be critical for you to get the essays absolutely right. The regular decision round at top schools is way more competitive than the early application, so your margin for error shrinks substantially. You absolutely have to have a well-written, mistake-free essay that hits the correct thematic notes that admissions counselors are looking for. You should also be sure to revise the activities and honors sections of the Common App and any school-specific applications.
If you would like a second opinion on your essays, please email me at johan@admissionshero.com to set up a free consultation. We know what admissions officers like to see in essays and can tell you instantly if you are on the right track, or if you need to make substantial changes. Remember, the smallest adjustments can have big effects on your application.
What is the best case scenario for me now that I have been deferred?
I think the best case scenario is illustrated by our student Jerry, who applied to Princeton early for the Class of 2019 last year. Jerry came to us after he was deferred by Princeton and despite a stellar resume (2300 on his SAT, 3/460 class rank at a competitive high school, lots of leadership and research on his resume), Jerry was deferred by Princeton into the early round.
However, after getting deferred, Jerry didn’t slack off and maintained his perfect 4.0 GPA. He continued to pursue his research projects until February, progressing till he could get his first paper published, and launched a major community service initiative with his school’s Key Club (he was the secretary).
Jerry also worked with Admissions Hero to raise his SAT score to a 2380, as well as to revise his Common App essay and supplement essays for the other schools on his list.
Additionally, Jerry worked with us throughout the deferral process, and we helped him craft his deferral letter, secure an additional recommendation from a senior year teacher that he built a great relationship with, and strategize for how best to communicate with his local admissions counselor.
All of this hard work paid off, and so in March when regular decision results were released, Jerry got into all of his top regular decision schools: Penn, Cornell, Columbia, and UChicago. And, thanks to the way that we approached the deferral process, Jerry was accepted into Princeton as well, where he is now a member of the Class of 2019.
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