<p>Hi W&M Admissions - I wanted to use this post from you in the main thread as a jumping off point for a new thread:</p>
<p>@californiamusic, that really depends on your previous record. If your first semester grades are strong that of course can't hurt and could help but could also be somewhat neutral if your grades have always been strong. If your first semester grades aren't strong that of course won't be a plus factor for you</p>
<p>It at first surprised me that strong 1st semester grades would be a neutral if grades have always been strong, but upon reflection, I see your point -- if good grades were good enough during ED you wouldn't have deferred the student on that basis alone so why admit him now. It would be helpful to know what tips the balance to offer the few ED deferred students acceptance. Any real-life examples? Or is a matter of you were looking for "X" kind of student and the deferred ED crew didn't quite fit bill, but then it turned out that the deferred student was the best option after all? </p>
<p>@justwonderful, it’s most often new information that can bump an ED defer to an admit. New and improved standardized testing, new and improved grades (maybe the student had a rocky junior year or maybe the student had never taken APs and now is) are the most commonplace examples. It can sometimes be that a student accidentally left something out of their initial application (an art submission for example) that we now have. Or, sometimes it can be that once we had a chance to see the entire pool, we realized that the student is more competitive than we originally thought. Hope that helps.</p>
<p>Thanks, W&M. I waited to respond in case anyone else wanted to say anything (sometimes it seems like a thank-you closes out the discussion, and I don’t mean it to). I like that you made it super-clear in your deferred letter that chances for being admitted would be slim, so it’s interesting to see where the sliver of hope lies. Good luck with the rest of your reviewing process!</p>
<p>I was looking at the Common Data set yesterday and while I didn’t look at deferred info (not even sure if it is in there), one thing I noticed is that slightly less than 5% of the students placed on the wait list get admitted.</p>