<p>I have to agree with one voice - that there are probably high and low deferrals.
Here is my thought process and advice for anyone who is deferred. Take it as you wish.
It is not true that there may necessarily be anything wrong with your applications. Yes, for the low deferrals, something might not have been strong enough - ie. grades, SAT scores ect, or extra curriculars that really stand out. However, for the high deferrals,, there might have been absolutely nothing wrong. The truth might just be that there were a lot of recruited athletes and legacies and development admits who typically make up the early pool, and many of those are taken early and that took away a large number of spots of the early applicants, and while compelling, some applicants just were not chosen. It is hard for people to understand this but often there is no rhyme or reason to the decisions. An applicant can get accepted to Harvard but not Cornell. Accepted to Penn but not Brown. Accepted to Yale but not Dartmouth.
So, you dont know what the admissions office is thinking. The reality is however that all schools with the exception of Harvard care about yield. They care about the persent accepted that will come. They dont really want to accept appicants who will turn them down to go to Harvard, Yale or Princeton ect. This is where interest comes in. Where there were two compelling candidates who were deferred, Penn will probably take the one who showed interest and conveyed that they are most likely to come if accepted.
For the applicant in this category, ie. the high level deferral, showing interest is very important. For the other category that had some weaknesses in the application if there are ways to supplement that it would be helpful.
There are probably three levels of deferral candidates.
The high level I must mentioned who is very compelling and there was really no reason why they should have not been accepted. The middle level deferral who has high scores and grades but there is nothing that applicant has done extra curricular wise that makes him or her stand out from the other appicants, and the low level deferral who was strong enough not to be rejected, but not as competitive as other applicants.</p>
<p>Hey... so I did extremely well last semester, but this semester senioritis hit me. How much can people slack off this last semester of high school? Im not failing any course or anything... but im starting to get worried about the grades Ive been having.</p>