Deferral letter versions?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Michigan
1

I heard there are three versions of deferral letters, each start as:

A: Thank you for your application to the university of Michigan … for fall 2016. We are pleased that you have applied and are impressed with your achievements.

B: We have carefully considered your application to the university of Michigan…for fall 2016. Given our surging application volume and very strong credentials of our applicants , admission to the university is becoming increasingly competitive.

C: Thank you for your freshman application to the university of Michigan. After an initial individualized and comprehensive review of your application, we have determined that we will need a additional information in order to make the final decision.

2

BTW, mine is:
Thank you for your application to the University of Michigan College of Engineering for Fall 2016. We are pleased that you have applied and are impressed with your achievements. However, our high application volume, coupled with the very strong credentials of our applicants in recent years, has contributed to an increasingly competitive admissions process. As a result, we are writing to inform you that your application is currently being deferred for further review.

While this is not the answer that you were hoping to hear, your application remains under consideration. All final admissions decisions of admit, deny, or waitlist will be made no later than early April, 2016.

Strong fall semester or trimester grades may improve your status in the deferred pool of applicants. Therefore, please ask your high school counselor to forward them when they become available. Beyond that, we are confident that the information you have given us is more than sufficient for a final decision. The most successful candidates send us only what we require. Please refer to the website https://umich.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2080 for FAQ’s about the admission process and what to do next.

We hope your interest in Michigan continues. You have our best wishes for an enjoyable and successful end of your senior year.

Sincerely,

Erica L. Sanders
Interim Director

3

Please post your deferral letter here. Let’s see if there are several versions of it.

4

Yes there is a version for legacies and a version for deferrals both asking for grades and a version asking for grades and telling the student their file will be reviewed after the regular decision deadline. So if you have been deferred you need to send grades.

5

I got the same letter. I submitted late and I think I have pretty decent stats and ECs…

6

So, is there a ‘good’ letter and a ‘bad’ letter?

7

While Michigan claims that there is no " bad" deferral letter, for the last several years our school guidance office banded together with 2 other nearby school GC offices and analyzed deferral letters vs eventual admittance. The “bad” version where they say that you won’t get a decision til after RD (vs the one that says you’ll get it before April and also praises accomplishments) had a much much lower percentage of eventual admittances. One year I helped tabulate and At our school out of 85 deferrals 60 or so good and 25 or so bad around 33 percent were eventually admitted of the good deferrals . Only 2 (under 10 per recent) of the bad deferral were. This admittedly a small sample. They were looking at about 200-300 letters per year at the three schools. The GC said these numbers were consistent school to school and year to year so far. Our OOS School send about 25 student to Umich each year.

8

Maya54. Of the three deferred versions posted yesterday In this thread at 9:21pm, which are the “good ones”? Thank you ;:wink:

9

@lagutier. The “bad” letter was one like C where they required ( vs suggested) additional info be submitted.

10

I’m sorry, but what is the point about ruminating over whether the letter is good or bad? Even if there is some anecdotal evidence tied to the letter gathered by some GC’s, there is simply no direct correlation between the letter and admission. Even in this “study” done by the GC’s, a few who got the so-called “bad” letter were still admitted, and a large percentage of those who got the “good” letter were rejected. It seems like a lot of agonizing for no reason. Just express your interest to Michigan, look at other opportunities, and wait (yes, I know it’s hard, but trying to guess whether you got a good letter or bad is just a waste of time you could be spending on more useful and enjoyable pursuits!)

11

Okay people have been posting a lot about the two versions of the deferral letter and whether one is better than the other. Here are the two versions (if anyone has seen a third version, please post with any thoughts as well):

(1)

Dear ____,

Thank you for your application to the University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts for Fall 2016. We are pleased that you have applied and are impressed with your achievements. However, our high application volume, coupled with the very strong credentials of our applicants in recent years, has contributed to an increasingly competitive admissions process. As a result, we are writing to inform you that your application is currently being deferred for further review.

While we recognize this is not the answer that you were hoping to hear, perhaps particularly so because of your family ties with the University, your application remains under consideration. All final admissions decisions of admit, deny, or waitlist will be made no later than early April, 2016.

Strong fall semester or trimester grades may improve your status in the deferred pool of applicants. Therefore, please ask your high school counselor to forward them when they become available. Beyond that, we are confident that the information you have given us is more than sufficient for a final decision. The most successful candidates send us only what we require. Please refer to the website https://umich.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2080 for FAQ’s about the admission process and what to do next.

We hope your interest in Michigan continues. You have our best wishes for an enjoyable and successful end of your senior year.

Sincerely,

Erica L. Sanders

Interim Director

(2)

Dear ____:

Thank you for your freshman application to the University of Michigan. After an initial individualized and comprehensive review of your application, we have determined that we will need additional information in order to make a final decision. We will not re-evaluate your application file until after our regular decision deadline of February 1, 2016. We need this additional information and time to ensure that we give your application the best possible review. We will notify you of a final decision on your application by early April.

The quality of grades earned in academic courses is one of several critical factors taken into consideration in evaluating a student’s competitive admissibility. To give your application a final evaluation, we will need your fall semester or first trimester grades. Because it is important that we receive these grades as soon as possible, please request to have a PDF of your grades sent from the issuing institution to our office via an e-transcript vendor or to ecredentials@umich.edu. If your counselor sent the initial School Report for your application through The Common Application online portal, they will need to complete the 2015-2016 MidYear Report using the same method. Otherwise, please ask your high school counselor to fax a report of these grades to our office at 734-936-0740.

Be sure your U-M ID ******** is on all materials submitted to the Office of Undergraduate Admissions.

We appreciate your interest in the University of Michigan and look forward to receiving the information requested. If you have specific follow-up questions, please visit https://umich.custhelp.com or phone 734-764-7433. We look forward to reviewing your completed application and appreciate your interest in the University of Michigan.

Go Blue!

University of Michigan
Office of Undergraduate Admissions

admissions.umich.edu

Hard to say if one is “better” than the other, but I would say the second letter feels somewhat better as it specifically mentions they need the fall semester transcript - as soon as possible - in order to make a “final evaluation”. They also insert the applicant’s personal UM ID and remind them to include it with all communications. In contrast, the first letter says strong grades might help and send them “when they become available” and then basically says “don’t send anything else”.

Odd that there are even two forms of the letter, and that one is sent by a named rep from admissions (Ms. Sanders) and the other is not.

Thoughts?

I will post this on the deferral thread as well. Best of luck to everyone!

GO BLUE!