<p>I applied to 3 schools early (MIT, Georgetown, UChicago) and got differed at all three of them. Although I consider my extracurriculars to be strong, my grades are not as high. I received three Bs in middle school (high school classes) and 3 Bs junior year (BC calc, ap bio, ap chem). My junior year grades were due to personal problems when one of my best friends passed away. I recently received my first semester senior grades, and am happy to say that I'm back on track (straight A's with A+s in AP computerscience, Multivariable calculus, and AP physics!). My SAT is a 2250 powerscore, with an 800 in reading.</p>
<p>My question is: does being differed mean that I don't have to worry about my gpa anymore? I know that competitive colleges have an invisible "threshold" over which grades do not matter. I've heard many people say that "as long as they think you can handle the coursework at the college level, your grades won't matter". Does being differed mean that I have passed this "threshold"? I feel as though my sat, extracurriculars, etc are good enough to get into a top college, but I am TERRIFIED that my gpa will be the one reason that I don't get in. I am not even in the top 10% of my grade (I'm actually in the 13th%). </p>
<p>I applied to schools such as Northwestern, Brown, and Notre Dame. I have pretty much given up hope on getting accepted to Uchicago seeing that the admit rate for deferred applicants is around 5%. Will my grades prevent me from getting into these colleges?</p>
<p>Deferred means that you’re looking good enough for them to consider you - you didn’t get outright rejected. The colleges will look at you again in relation to the larger applicant pool, as regular decision is usually a larger pool of students than Early Action/Decision. They will want to compose their class based on the widest possible choice of candidates.</p>
<p>The worst time to get lower grades is in your junior year. Schools want to see an upward trend, not a downward trend, as in your case. So your first semester senior year grades are very important, they will be looked at with an eye to whether you have overcome whatever was going on in your junior year. Candidates sometimes explain circumstances like yours in their applications. If it’s done in a mature way it can make a lot of difference. </p>
<p>Honestly, it depends on your entire application. It’s not your GPA, imho, but the downward trend that I think is biting you. I’m not aware of the ‘threshold’ you mentioned. If you check out the average and upper 25% GPA’s for the schools you’ve listed, they’re pretty darned high. But if you were not at all competitive you would’ve been rejected.</p>
<p>Out of curiosity, what are your ec’s? Remember - these are very competitive schools you’re applying to so just having “good” ec’s often aren’t enough.</p>
<p>^Not true. You can check these schools out individually but I know for Yale, a deferral from SCEA into the RD pool has a much higher admit rate than RD applicants. That still might be less than 10% but it is a good sign.</p>
<p>Hopefully you have other safety schools on your list since the schools you mention are not safeties for anyone or at least for someone with your stats. Unless you are graduating from one of the most selective high schools in the country, your transcript may be a problem since that it is the most important part of the application.</p>
<p>I was just about to say what T26E4 said: for MIT, Georgetown and Chicago, applying usually means you’ll eventually be rejected, but being deferred doesn’t have special predictive value.</p>
<p>People are always looking for signs. Unfortunately there is not one universal meaning that holds for all colleges. Deferred tends to mean one of two things. At some colleges, like Stanford, a significant proportion of their ED applicants are actually rejected. At these schools a deferral is a positive sign; you are still strongly in the running. At most schools, though, they either accept or defer their early applicants. Consequently it gives no clue about your subsequent chances.</p>