Deferrals.

My experience as a director of admissions & admissions officer:

What does the deferral process look like on the admissions side?

• The act of deferring applicants from an early round (Early Decision, Early Action) to the regular round is very common among highly selective and selective schools. To be clear, this is an institutional tool and lever. While there might be benefits that flow to the applicants, this is used to manage admission and yield in important ways.

• Colleges defer anywhere from dozens of students to thousands, and there’s not really a way of knowing who does what. Common Data Sets do not ask about defer practices, and very few institutions reveal this information in updates and counselor forums.

• Some colleges will defer all non-admitted students from their early round to their regular round, meaning they don’t deny anyone (or very few students). In these cases, students should simply see their applications as competing for regular decision spots - there’s virtually no additional consideration or hook provided to them because they applied early. It’s a frustrating experience since students now have to wait several more months to find out their final decision.

• Other colleges defer a sizable portion of their pool - but not everyone. Some might defer 20% of their early pool, for example, because they “want to see them in the context of the regular pool.” At least, that’s what colleges often say. For these students, they might have a slight boost in terms of their admission prospects at that particular college, but they’re still one of many.

• Finally, there are some colleges that defer a relatively small number of students they wish to see in the spring. This was our practice at Swarthmore. Of the Early Decision files we reviewed, we deferred somewhere in the neighborhood of 50-75 students out of maybe 1,000-1,500 files across two ED rounds. We regularly admitted about half of these students in March, and while they were no longer bound by the ED commitments, most enrolled. Let’s break this down. Why do colleges defer?

  • Multiple reasons exist. One reason might be a courtesy deferral - this is similar to a courtesy waitlist. The college - for whatever reason - doesn’t want to deny the student, but they also don’t have room to admit the student (or don’t want to). So they defer the student and then probably deny their admission. Perhaps this is a legacy candidate. To deny a legacy candidate just before the holidays might sting, so the office would rather send a nice letter to the family indicating the student has been deferred and will be re-reviewed in the spring. By that time, maybe the student has moved on or applied ED2 elsewhere.

  • Another reason - because there are legitimate reasons to hold on the candidate and see more information. First semester grades is a big reason. Maybe the student had excellent grades up until senior year, and then first quarter grades were shaky in a rigorous curriculum. If the student can bring the grades back up, they might have a better shot at being admitted.

  • Also, students can be deferred from institutions that track demonstrated interest. If your student isn’t adequately demonstrated interest (which is obviously subjective and depends on each institution), then they could be deferred. I’ve seen students with that particular reason get admitted in Regular after visiting campus and doing other things. I’m not here to suggest that’s fair and equitable, but for students with the means to do so, they should do it. Alternatively, they can sign up for virtual programs, open emails, etc.

  • Finally - admit spots and yield. The college only has so many spots to give to ED candidates, and hooked applicants take an enormous amount of spots at highly selective institutions. If the college receives a ton more applications for the same number of spots, they’re more tempted to defer to keep competitive students in the pool, rather than denying highly qualified applicants. The conventional wisdom (and data confirms this) is: if an excited, ED candidate is deferred and they remain interested, the college could admit them in the spring and bring up their yield. In my experience, our regular decision yield at Swarthmore was around 25% or so. This was also wildly different based on characteristics and metrics, but that’s for another post. For deferred ED to Regular students, yield was more like 80%, so it’s almost an extension of the ED benefits to a college. That’s why it’s so tempting to defer students.

• So what can students do to improve their chances on the deferred list?

  • First, I’d probably ask (if it’s not listed in the deferral letter) how many students were deferred and if they have historic averages of the number of students admitted in regular from the deferred list. Some colleges will refuse to answer this question, but some will provide valuable information.

  • If it’s a relatively high number - maybe 20%+ - then I’d spend some time thinking through next steps. If it’s lower than that, there’s a fairly small chance of admission, so just keep doing what they’re doing, send an updated grade report, etc.

  • If there’s a way to “accept” a spot on the defer list, perhaps through the portal, interested students should immediately do it.

  • Admission offices generally expect a LOCI - a letter of continued interest. Sometimes, they detail what’s expected in the deferral letter, and other times you have to guess. In general, they should be sent toward the beginning of February and usually to the VP or Dean of Admission. They should be no more than a page, and the letter should detail a) the student’s continued interest, and b) if there are any major updates to the application - grades, awards won, etc. These updates don’t often make the difference (besides grades), but you never know. If there’s updated testing to share, they should also share that if they applied with testing.

  • Counselors should send the first semester grades as normal. If there are contextual factors, that can be a quick email to the dean.

  • If the college takes demonstrated interest into account, it also doesn’t hurt to continue to show that interest. That doesn’t necessarily mean making another visit to the college (but see my note above) - I’ve had that happen even though we didn’t look at DI, and it’s awkward. But opening emails and clicking on links could help, or engaging with the applicant portal - which may or may not include things the student can do.

• In the end, the deferral process can be a black hole, but I encourage counselors to ask questions of AOs. The worst is they can say “no, we don’t provide additional information”.