<p>what's the difference?</p>
<p>Waitlisted is when someone has been put on the waiting list after all acceptance or rejection letters have been sent out. People on the waitlist only get in if the yield is not high enough. It is rare to get in on the waitlist.</p>
<p>Deferred is when you apply Early Decision or Action and they aren’t sure whether or not to admit you, so you defer you to the normal decision time.</p>
<p>Waitlists are used by colleges as a backup to fill slots declined by their initial batch of accepted students. For instance, College X accepts 2000 kids for 1250 slots. Aside from these 2000, they offer Waitlist status to another 500. These 500 are told to accept a spot at another college (since there is no guarantee of coming off of College X’s waitlist). After the final decision date, 800 of College X’s acceptees either accept other offers or otherwise decline. Therefore only 1200 of the offers were accepted by the acceptees. 50 slots open up. College X goes to their waitlist and offers 50 kids those slots. These fifty then have to decide if they will accept this later offer (usually they begin in June). If so, then they go back to the school that is holding a slot for them, inform them that they need to withdraw due their coming off of College X’s waitlist. No blood no foul. Schools accept that they lose some students to other college’s waitlisting. </p>
<p>Like Pork said: only EA or ED students get deferred/accepted or rejected. If not accepted or rejected outright, the applicant is deferred and considered in the larger regular decision pool. Like other RD applicants, you’ll be accepted/rejected or waitlisted.</p>
<p>Hope this is clear</p>