Hello. Recently I was deferred by Boston University after applying EDII. I was curious if BU was on of those schools that deferres almost all early applicants. Side Question: Also, I am having a great Senior year and they didn’t receive my grades for this year… will they help a lot?
Thanks a lot!
Hey! I don’t have an answer for your question but I was also deferred for the College of Communications.
Yeah, I was deferred from the College of Arts and Sciences. We’re toy p
*Were you planning on contacting the school or even sending additional information to them?
I was deferred from Sargent
BU isn’t like BC and defers everybody except top students. If you look at the ED thread you’ll see that many students who have the average scores for BU got in, several got deferred, and many students actually got denied. Good luck on the regular round of decisions!
@sarahhs2018 BC has EA, BU has ED. Big difference in terms of number of applicants.
@sarahhs2018 so just to clarify… you are saying that BU does or doesn’t deny ED2 applicants while BD does the opposite?
@TomSrOfBoston That’s true, I was just using BC as an example as one of those schools who usually defers instead of outright rejecting in the early rounds. @James.84055 BU does deny ED2 applicants, so a deferral isn’t necessarily a bad thing!
Pretty sure EDII applicants have roughly the same chances as RD applicants (just the way I see it).
If you’ve gotten deferred and accepted, could you post here?
@GMKoon I would actually make the argument that EDII has a better chance than RD. First they look at ED1 to see their initial pool, and defer those they aren’t sure would fit in it. Then they look at ED2 and compare those applicants to ED1, so they have I guess slightly less of a chance than ED1, but they still have shown a lot of interest with applying ED so they definitely have that aspect of the application checked off which helps them. Then finally RD comes in, and they can really have a grasp of their applicant pool, comparing RD to both ED1 and ED2 AND the other RD applicants, and RD does not have the guaranteed demonstrated interest ED1&2 do unless if an applicant that applied RD also applied for Kilachand or the Trustee Scholarship and had to send in their app early and/or write another essay.
If every other thing is similar, common sense, the chance will be ED1 deferred>= ED2 deferred > RD.
Every admission counselor will judge in this way if colleges feel the yield rate is important for them as ED application is the most and the only critical demonstration of applicants’ interest in colleges.
I disagree. The admissions people know that some people cannot apply ED because of financial need. Fantastic applicants apply RD and they know this too. If EDI and EDII have been deferred, I believe, if anything, the competition gets a bit stiffer in the RD round. An RD kid could easily blow an ED kid out of the water when compared side to side all things equal (and there are many variables). And the different deadlines allow them to only know what their applicant pool is in real time. After the RD deadline, then they know what they have to parse it all out. And who is to say that the ED2 kid who, let’s hypothetically say, got denied or deferred from their ED I school wouldn’t stand out amazingly in the RD round if they were deferred EDII? Especially if they have showed demonstrated interest! Admissions people know EDI kids get deferred and denied, thus they created EDII! It’s never simple with admissions.
Very simple example:
(Remeber, for a student, he/she can apply to, theoretically, unlimited RD, while only one EDI and EDII.)
Student A is RD and student B is ED deferred and every other thing is very similar. For example, SAT 1350, GPA uw 3.5, essay perfect, EC similar and applying to the same major.
An admission counsel of a college, BU, WSU, CWRU, Northeastern or, has to choose one student from student A-RD and student B-ED-deferred?
Who will they select, A or B?
@Winky1 I think it depends on the school. Because there are plenty of schools that are wonderful about understanding applicant’s financial situations and the fact that many often can’t take the AP tests or SAT subject scores or apply ED because they are not in the financial situation where they can afford it, but, while I love BU otherwise and am excited to go there, they are not very good about that kind of thing… which is especially evident in the fact that they are a need aware school. I really, really wish they weren’t because it makes me very sad for those who that may harm because education should not be that way, but it is BU’s system. There are other schools that are fantastic about being need blind and understanding of various financial situations and I think in that case they are less likely to show such a pronounced preference for ED kids.
But, at the same time my argument for the whole thing would be that there are ABSOLUTELY stronger RD candidates than ED candidates in some cases. Especially because often people apply ED because it is their number one choice and they aren’t as confident they would get in RD because of testing scores or GPA or something (but in BU’s case I don’t think anyone could be confident they’d get in there nowadays). I just think that RD candidates often have to prove more in terms of demonstrated interest because ED kids show that in just applying ED. I wish the “game” didn’t work like that, but unfortunately college is a business and it harms a lot of kids in being so 
@BOSTON20182025 , I don’t think the ED deferred kid in your situation necessarily has an edge. I don’t. If the ED kid was deferred, they are released from the ED agreement and are no longer bound to attend. Could come down to geographics or another diversity factor. I speak from my own opinion, with a D who was deferred from her ED school. I don’t think she has any preferencial advantage at that school. I think she is now 1 applicant in a big RD pool. that’s how I see it.
@sunflowerlover, I think you are confusing my ED opinion with need aware/need blind. I agree with you that if a school is need aware like BU, that what a family can pay is a factor. It is because they are need aware. But that is separate from what I was saying above.
Now if you are bringing the pay factor into it, and there is a full pay deferred ED kid and a half pay RD kid and they need to choose one, then yes, I believe that can be enough to affect the decision.
Just saying overall, ED deferred by itself is not enough, in my opinion, to beat out RD qualified students.
@Winky1 Gotcha, my bad! You do bring up an interesting point with your response to Boston2018 , I guess it depends on if a school separates the kids who are now RD but were deferred from ED and the kids who applied RD. I don’t know if schools do that, maybe some of them do, but that would be an interesting hypothetical if they mark it on the application that they applied ED or something like that.
@Winky1 But yes, I do agree that ED deferred on its own would not beat out a more qualified RD student. I think if they are equal in every way and it is marked that the student applied ED that might sway an admissions officer but I could never know because the whole thing is so murky!
I think schools do know who was deferred from ED and who is RD. They have that info. I guess I just don’t think schools are considering demonstrated interest to the point that it becomes the sole tipping point for admission or that they are exhibiting loyalty to deferred ED I or ED II candidates. I think it becomes a very competitive field in the RD mix.
Here’s an example. A kid from my D’s school applied ED to MIT. He was deferred. My D was deferred from her ED school, too (Wash U). Now the super smart kid who was deferred from MIT is now applying RD to my D’s ED school (Wash U). They will both be mixed up into the RD pool for final decisions. Now, I really do not believe that Wash U is going to give preference to my D because she applied there early and that her willingness to go there is going to be what will get her admitted over the kid who was deferred from MIT. See what I mean? I think schools want more in the last go-round if you were deferred. What were your first semester grades? What accomplishments have you had? What awards have you won? How have you articulated this, if you have at all. Then, they take all of the info. and compare. All of those pieces of info, in my opinion - at that point in the process - are worth more than the fact that a kid did indeed apply ED and was deferred. Getting back to my example, if Wash U loved my D so much that they want to give her preference over another RD kid, then they would’ve just admitted her in the first place!
Let’s take my example now and apply it to BU. My D was deferred from Wash U ED. She now is applying RD to BU. She loves BU! She visited and toured, went to info.session at her high school with a rep. twice, applied to honors college, applied to Trustees Scholarship, had her application in by the end of November, communicated with her rep. She intended on applying to BU as an RD applicant long ago. I think she has as good of a shot as anybody else in the final round of decision making. I do think the admissions reps. will be able to see that she has genuine, sustained interest, and grades and scores and extracurriculars to back it all up. But the funny part is, none of that guarantees an applicant anything! No guarantees. Every student does his best and that’s all they can do. All of the other factors that come into play -and the need aware component comes into play here - are out of a student’s control.
So, I just basically think there so many factors and being a deferred ED candidate isn’t enough to get you over the edge on it’s own.
@Winky1 that’s very fair! I guess something to consider too is how much a school weighs demonstrated interest. I know that is a factor listed on the form all of the colleges fill out annually (I’m blanking on its name lol) so I’m sure there are schools that wouldn’t care as much about ED and others that would, I don’t know if I can define that for one specific school though because all of them have so many different policies. I reeeeeally do hope your daughter does come to BU though if she is as even keeled as you are 
It’s refreshing to see someone who doesn’t get snippy on here!!