<p>A person I know was deferred when she applied Early Decision. She said that she was accepted this weekend. I have never heard of this process and wanted to know if anyone had heard of it.</p>
<p>When students apply early decision, they are either accepted, rejected, or deferred to the regular decision pool. If they are deferred, that means they are qualified, but that the admissions committee wants to review their application in comparison with the regular decision pool before offering admission. Probably they finished the review and offered admission just before the regular decisions came out since the applicant originally applied early decision.</p>
<p>There are all sorts of "likely" communication going on right now with Duke, with lots of it coming out this past weekend. If she got invited to Duke UpClose or is a finalist for any of the scholarships, or is hispanic and got invited to the Latino Recruitment weekend, then she was accepted to Duke. Those are just 3 different ways that I can think of that would explain an early notification of acceptance.</p>
<p>True, but if she was deferred in the first place, that means she is borderline enough to not be granted admission initially. I seriously doubt she would be a candidate for a scholarship or any special recognition at this stage.</p>
<p>But if she sent in awesome awards or achievements after her deferral, she can very well qualify as a scholarship candidate.</p>
<p>I'm with bandmom on this one. it's doubtful.</p>
<p>Duke doesn't grant that many merit scholarships as it is, and they are extremely competitive. I am sure it's a case of Duke being supportive of an early decision applicant. In a field of thousands of equally qualified candidates, when they have to narrow the field, they might as well select the one (ED applicant) who wants to come to Duke the most.Let's just be happy for her that she got in and not try to analyze why she got notified a little early :)</p>
<p>Yeah, it's possible.
It's called donating money. </p>
<p>(back in the day my friend who was hardly a decent applicant for Cornell applied ED, got deferred, and around this time - maybe a little earlier - got a phone call that went a little, "Hey, remember that deferral. just kidding! CONGRATULATIONS you're cornell class of 2008 now!" as the story goes, her family is filled with cornell legacies and thick bank accounts. a generous hannukah present to cornell is the only thing that ties the deferral with the february/early march acceptance)</p>
<p>since duke only gives very few scholarships, these typically go to their TOP applicants -- and top applicants wouldn't be getting deferred ED.</p>
<p>she didnt get a scholarship invite, that's for sure, but she may have gotten a regular likely letter--what if she sent in something new?</p>
<p>i do agree that it's pretty iffy...</p>