<p>Because I have received many questions on the "Ask an Admissions Counselor" thread, I am starting a new thread for deferred students. Deferred students, please use this thread for any questions you may have. </p>
<p>A defer means that we are not granting you acceptance at this time, but we will review your application again in the winter. You do NOT need to resubmit your application materials (unless your UChicago account notes that you are missing materials, in which case you should resubmit those materials) or reapply to UChicago-- we will carry over your old application materials. </p>
<p>Our deferral list is not ranked, and historically about 10% of deferred students are admitted in the Regular Decision pool. If UChicago remains your top choice, here is some advice on what to do next:</p>
<p>Do:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Have your school send us a "mid-year report" containing your 1st semester grades. Occasionally, students are deferred because we want to see these senior year grades. If you have new testing, be sure to send those scores as well.</p></li>
<li><p>Send an email to your regional counselor. This should be a thoughtful paragraph or two specifying why UChicago remains your first choice. We would prefer to receive this communication by e-mail rather than paper mail. There are no hard deadlines, but keep in mind we will release decisions in March. One thoughtful email will have MUCH more of an impact than many shorter e-mails. </p></li>
<li><p>Continue your college search. UChicago represents just one school in a sea of incredible institutions of higher learning. At the end of this process you're going to end up with an wonderful place to call home.</p></li>
<li><p>Optional: You can continue to upload supplemental materials directly to your Portfolio in your UChicago Account. Doing so is not required, and please be judicious in deciding what to upload. Again, more information is not better here; we appreciate updates but please make sure that new information is not something that duplicates information you have already sent to us. We would prefer you to upload these materials to your Portfolio rather than sending them by paper mail. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>++Very Optional: Students who have not already had an interview (either on campus or with an alum) may request an alumni interview through their Chicago Account. Please remember that interviews are NOT a required portion of the admissions process, and we are not able to match every student who requests an interview with one. </p>
<p>Don't:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Book an overnight flight to Chicago. While we always enjoy welcoming students to campus, we do not make decisions based on whether or not a student has visited. Besides, there's nothing we can tell you in person that we couldn't do over phone or email (or CC). </p></li>
<li><p>Panic. An admissions decision is not an evaluation of you as a person. Decisions are made over a long period of time, by several people, with some conversation, taking into account the entire applicant pool. We cannot give reasons for decisions over the phone or via email, as it really is impossible to condense the conversations behind our decisions in a way that would be adequate or helpful to the applicant.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Thanks for the advice! I’m definitely disappointed that I didn’t get accepted, but I’m hopeful for the regular pool. My GPA should improve pretty dramatically after this semester, so every little bit helps. Fingers crossed.</p>
<p>So applicants that are deferred have a chance of being admitted that is half of what the regular applicant has? If that is true, why don’t the adcoms reject a larger percentage of early applicants?</p>
<p>Proudpatriot, we do not evaluate deferred students with the idea that we will only accept 10% of them-- we are just noting that traditionally 10% have been students that we have later chosen to accept based on the strength of their application in our RD pool’s context and any student-provided updates we receive. Any deferred student is welcome to send us updates; we encourage students to send a midyear report, send an email to their regional counselor if UChicago remains a first choice, and upload any materials you may wish for us to know about.</p>
<p>I understand that students are not intentionally deferred so that there is only a 10% acceptance rate for deferred students. However, clearly if there is roughly a 20% acceptance rate among all applicants and a 10% acceptance rate among deferred applicants, then many students are being deferred that the adcoms know will not be accepted in the regular round. IMO if students take the time to apply early then a university (not just Chicago ANY university) owes them an HONEST answer in the early round. It is not right that the vast majority of students are not given an honest answer when they apply early.</p>
<p>As for my son, I just don’t see that there will be anything materially different about his academic record in the next few months. Will the University really care that he was named captain of the wrestling team AGAIN? Or that he won ANOTHER academic award? He should have been given an answer. If that answer was no, he could live with that but he is irritated that he was deferred. He feels that the university owes him a real answer.</p>
<p>I was reading the decisions list and so I’m wondering, did Uchicago just defer practically everyone even semi qualified? I think I might have seen one reject out of over 20 defer.</p>
<p>Agree with you on the apparent trend at the top schools like Chicago of deferring many more applicants than they could possibly ever admit instead of making the hard decisions earlier. I wonder if they think a deferral is less painful and will not create animosity toward the school. </p>
<p>At least, Chicago defers in a non-binding EA process where students had the opportunity to apply EA or ED at other schools. What I really dislike are all of the deferrals at the single choice EA schools, like Harvard, or many of the ED schools., where the students gave up their rights to apply early to another university only to be strung along by their first choice.</p>
<p>I wanted to clarify two questions that have come up frequently on the Ask An Admissions Counselor thread and our general e-mail account:</p>
<p>Interviews: deferred students who have not already had an alumni or on campus interview may express interest in an alumni interview through their Chicago Account. Students may have a maximum of one interview, so you may not have another interview if you have already done one.</p>
<p>Decisions: It is our policy to not discuss the reason for a particular admissions decision with students or parents, whether the student is accepted, denied, or deferred. It would be very difficult to do so even if we wanted to, since final decisions are made by committee. Please feel free to call or e-mail our office with any questions you have about the deferral process or to update us with new information, but know that we will not discuss the reasoning behind your particular decision.</p>
<p>I’d like to know could I ask my teacher to send my mid-year grades via e-mail, since mailing it by DHL or something like that would cost too much, and our school fax is not used for this purpose.</p>
<p>I totally agree with Proudpatriot. Chicago should be called out for deferring so many students who will have no chance of admission, and then stringing them along and suggesting that they continue to contact admissions, send additional materials, etc. Deferred students: go after other excellent schools where you are not wasting your time!</p>
<p>Chicago, time to release the number of deferred/rejected early applicants. What is there to hide?</p>
<p>1) You applied EA.
2) They took a hard look and found that your application was not as strong as those who were admitted, but strong enough to attend UChicago.
3) They get far more qualified applicants than they can take. They tell you that up front.
4) Obviously, your raw chances of getting into UChicago are much lower than those whose applications have not been vetted at all.
5) They don’t know the quality of applications that they will receive. That math is simple. There will be some really strong candidates in the final round, as strong as those they’ve already admitted. Probably not enough though. Thus, some people who are deferred will be competitive in the final round.
6) Most will not. </p>
<p>I don’t see anything on the part of UChicago that is disingenuous. If you want to view it as a rejection, that’s probably wise, as it probably is. If it’s your first choice, I’m sorry. If you can hold your emotions together for a bit, how hard will it be to write an email to your regional rep and arrange for your mid-year report to be sent. </p>
<p>EA/ED applicants know ahead of time that deferral is an option. If they disapprove of this practice, they should not apply early. They should not complain about it after the fact.</p>
<p>Yes, all applicants understand that a deferral is a possibility. But when admissions knows that close to 90% of deferred students have NO shot, and close to 100% of hookless students have NO chance, well then treat these applicants with respect and reject them. Problem is I think that this might discourage future EA applicants. And bottom line is that the more applicants, the better the school looks at least to some. Any stat that is published (SATs, #applicants, yield%, etc.) is a huge focus for these schools. Northwestern has it right–Early applicants are accepted or rejected.</p>
<p>Why would it discourage future EA applicants? There is absolutely no loss in a deferral, besides the possible stress of a longer wait, which is really not a big deal. I was deferred from Columbia ED and there is no way that I would rather be rejected, even if my chance of getting in is close to zero. If one would rather be rejected from a school than get looked at again in the RD round, then I can’t imagine one being very interested in attending.</p>
<p>Calexio, The problem is that almost none of the deferred applicants will get a serious look during RD. If the deferred students were actual serious contenders for spots, then the admit rate for them would be much higher than the overall admit rate for RD applicants. However, it is in fact LOWER. Yes of course a student should prefer to be deferred than rejected, if in fact being deferred meant an honest second shot.</p>
<p>Why do you think Chicago won’t release the deferred/rejected numbers? They were really quick to release applicant numbers and % accepted. (“Look how selective we are!”) I’ll bet because it doesn’t look good for them.</p>