<p>more and more students w/terrific credentials are being deferred not only from Ivy League and Top 10 LACs, but even the better public universities and other schools where it is clear the school may be a safety for them. It is likely that the Admissions officer reads the application for some evidence of clear intent of interest in and familiarity with the school. It is happening at Villanova, University of Michigan, Colgate etc. Anybody else notice this happening more this year as opposed to past years (when you might have other kids applying to college)? Seems to be a really tough year to get into schools, even w/top stats. Our second child w/much better stats, strong essays and LORs was deferred at UMich where our first was accepted 3 years ago. Even his ECs were pretty unique and had great depth. Being full pay OOS did not seem to help either, even though most public unviersities are starving for money to offset declining state government contributions (IIRC UM was down to 17% contribution from the State of Michigan from a prior 48% not that long ago).</p>
<p>Nothing to be ashamed of being deferred…Schools are inundated with over quailifed applicants,so a significant number are being deferred…Schools are taking the EA round and ‘cherry picking’ the creme de la creme,those who are different then the myriads of applicants with high SATs/ACTs,NMSFs etc…</p>
<p>I also sense a large number of well-qualified and even over-qualified applicants. I have been wondering if this is an echo-boom applicant year or if more grade inflation is hitting the H.S. So many students are taking the maximum AP or IB load and doing multiple test prep services. It is a fact that EA applications are up 5-25% almost across the board (UNC was the only exception I found, perhaps due to an earlier filing deadline). With most universities now accepting the Common App. , I think the best students are simply sending a flood of applications to all the best schools. Adding an extra 10 schools may cost you about $700-$1,000 more, but that is small potatoes compared to the four-year cost of college (or even 1 semester’s worth of books).</p>
<p>Please remember that a deferral is not the end of the app road, it just means you need to wait longer for a decision.</p>
<p>thx, my-3-sons, we are trying to remember that, but are not counting on anything. I hope you are right and maybe we get a pleasant surprise. It is discouraging seeing even the strongest of applicants getting deferred and knowing you will be considered against them in the RD pool again as well. My S was prepared to fill out a couple more applications at the eleventh hour, but luckily got an admit at another very good EA school just before doing so. Prior to that he had received three consecutive deferrals (two at presumably “match” schools) and was really down.</p>
<p>Just saw on the UChicago board that a student got deferred with 4.0gpa and 2300SAT</p>
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<p>I wonder if there isn’t a completely benign explanation. Perhaps the colleges were just caught unprepared by the huge increase in EA/ED applications. Recall that Admissions Offers have to spend the fall touring around, visiting highschools and giving presentations. So maybe they just didn’t have time to read all the early apps. Maybe they just did a first quick screen (“nothing obvious by which to reject this kid”) and kicked the can down the road.</p>
<p>Certainly, if the applicant pool is changing in significant ways, the schools are prudent to wait and see the whole pool before committing to particular applicants.</p>
<p>"Just saw on the UChicago board that a student got deferred with 4.0gpa and 2300SAT "</p>
<p>They deferred a lot of people much closer to 2400 and if I am not mistaken, one had 2400.</p>
<p>OTOH - they deferred some with 1800 too. So they are all equal?</p>
<p>mihcal1 - “Maybe they just did a first quick screen (“nothing obvious by which to reject this kid”) and kicked the can down the road.”</p>
<p>I thought the same thing. Way tooooo many deferrals. Too little time and too many apps.</p>
<p>Iy. So what if the kid had a 4.0 and a 2300? That is just a bunch of numbers. It says nothing about what the student is like as a person. Maybe the essay was bad. Maybe the person came off as ambitious yet superficial. I am often disgusted by what I read on this website.</p>
<p>Disgusted? I am sometimes surprised, but rarely disgusted. What, specifically, disgusts you?</p>
<p>I don’t think this is anything new. I’ve been monitoring acceptances and deferrals informally for 6 + years. So, so many people are always surprised at how many well qualified do not get the acceptance either in EA/ED/RD to top tier schools. </p>
<p>Maybe your #1 was lucky vs. #2 is experiencing unlucky - b/c after meeting the colleges qualifications a lot of it is luck (who the admissions reader is, how well the recommendation is written…)</p>
<p>What surprises me about U of Chicago is they are still emailing kids to send applications. D got an email on 12/21 to send application and has a 31 ACT… Why defer kids with 2300+ SAT’s but still reach out to others to send in applications.
Surely there is not that much income from the fees to make this a worth while process…</p>
<p>And the salutatorian for my D’s class was Deferred by Yale. This girl had amazing stats and EC’s we were all shocked…</p>
<p>Our school’s val was deferred from Princeton…</p>
<p>I think there was a young man on the M.I.T. thread this year who was deferred w/a 2390 SAT, 800s on his SAT IIs and pretty good E.C.s and from the Midwest IIRC. He must be thinking: “If only I had gotten those extra 10 points”. OKay this is not that unusual for M.I.T., but i remember thinking
the geographic diversity thing should have been a real bonus. Imagine if this kid dreamed about M.I.T. from the time he was in grade school and did everything he could to make that dream happen. I’m sure he’ll do great somewhere, possibly get in on review of deferral as well. But gee whiz, it sure seems like it comes down to a coin flip in so many cases. Our H.S. class valedictorian was deferred at a less than Top 30 school this year.</p>
<p>Please advise, where have you been? This is nothing new. It’s been like this for years now. And what would make you think “the Midwest” counts for geographical diversity at MIT? Good grief, they took kids from my Missouri high school 30 years ago. These are national schools. There’s nothing exotic about the Midwest. </p>
<p>And why are you so surprised that super high scoring kids get deferred / denied? They aren’t any more “worthy” than merely really-high scoring kids.</p>
<p>There are roughly 30,000 high schools in this country. They all can’t send their vals and sals to the top 20 schools. I continue to be amazed by the na</p>
<p>You guys have to realize that there are people “better” than them. Those accepted over them could have a harder schedule, better recs, etc. There are many other factors. I’m just blessed to get deferred from JHU with a 26 ACT. I’m telling you that there is a lot more to take into account.</p>
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<p>That doesn’t surprise me at all, after my sub-1900 PSAT kid got six (or maybe more, I stopped counting) mailings from them over the last year. It’s called, “rankings rule and number of rejections influence rankings.”</p>
<p>For the umpteenth time, it’s a whopping 1.5% of the ranking. Long run for a short slide.</p>