Getting closer to the time when decisions are announced, as a deferred student I was wondering what percent of EA applicants are deferred and if they have a better chance than RD applicants or if it is just an easy way of letting legacy students down? Thanks!
@ak9800 I was wondering the same thing. I was also deferred.
@ak9800 I was deferred as well, although I’m not a legacy! I would also love to know the deferral stats - I hope we have a better chance at acceptance, but that could just be wishful thinking.
Don Bishop, ND’s head of enrollment, has stated in recent years that ND typically defers around 900-1000 of the REA applicants, and ultimately admits between 100-150 of them. So, using those round numbers, you could assume that the acceptance rate for deferred REA students during the RD round ranges from about 11%-15% (depending on how optimistic or pessimistic you are).
One interesting thing this year is that when ND published the REA results back in December, there was no mention of how many REA applicants got deferred. (In prior years, ND had always mentioned the number of deferrals.)
However, using past ND admissions data can be useful as a general gauge. Let’s say that ND received a total of, say, 20,000 applications this year. That’s probably a reasonable guess, as it would be just slightly higher than last year’s total of 19,566 applications.
In recent years, ND has tried to enroll a freshman class of right around 2,050 students. Last year’s total yield for the entire class was 55.4%, so ND accepted a total of 3,702 students to fill its class of 2,051 enrollees.
In this year’s REA cycle, ND received 6,598 REA apps, and accepted 1,636 of them. If the yield rate on REA admits is similar to last year’s 64% REA yield, ND would expect to fill 1,047 of its 2,050 person class with just the REA students accepted back in December.
If you reverse-engineer the math, if the total yield for the incoming class is 55.4%, that would say that ND needs to again accept a total of 3,700 students. 3,700 / 20,000 apps = 18.5% acceptance rate. Since ND accepted 1,636 in REA, that leaves 2,064 slots open in the RD round in order to get to 3,700 total acceptances.
If ND receives 20,000 total apps this year, of which 6,598 were REA, then the number of RD apps received would be 13,402. To that total, you would add in the deferrals from the REA cycle, so let’s say 1,000 deferrals. In the Regular Decision pool, that would mean 14,402 applications competing for the remaining 2,064 slots, for an estimated RD acceptance rate of 14.3%.
I just don’t think it makes all that much difference in the regular pool if you are REA deferred or an RD applicant. Either way, you’re looking at an acceptance rate probably less than 15%. Best of luck to everyone awaiting a decision this month!
@GeronimoAlpaca You seem to have put a lot of thought into this
@ak9800 Ya think? 
How many athletes do they take. Are they included in the numbers?
There are roughly 800-900 undergraduate student-athletes at Notre Dame. That total includes recruited scholarship athletes (full and partial rides), recruited walk-ons, and preferred walk-ons. Figure that about 200-225 students per entering class have athletic talent good enough to be somewhat of a distinguishing factor in their admissions file.
My earlier post about using the historic admissions stats to “guestimate” the RD acceptance rate included all applicants regardless of athletic talent.
I agree with Geronimo’s math.
The chances of an REA deferred applicant are obviously better than the 0% chance that a REA deny has. But getting deferred (as a tell-tale for the ultimate admissions decision) is more of a neutral than anything else. Or maybe it is a very slight positive sign. Since your deferral indicates you will not be in the bottom 60-70% of the overall admissions pool.
But you still have no idea whether you are #1 among the defers (you are getting in for sure) or #1,000 (probably not happening).
Hang in there.
One anecdote: I know of highly qualified legacy applicants who were rejected EA, not deferred.
@david5454 What is your definition of “highly qualified”?
See post #47 in ND Legacy thread. Here’s a copy: My son was denied. Both of us graduated from ND, as did his grandfather and 6 aunts/uncles. My husband has two degrees from ND (undergrad and PhD). Admissions advised my son to apply REA. We know multiple Alum kids that have not been accepted. My sons scores were in mid range…higher than some of the stats I have seen posted in the acceptance thread. His class rigor was extremely high. He got the “family” rejection letter saying REA had nothing to do with it…but not so sure. He does have some unique things on his app. His grandparents moved to ND (Holy Cross retirement community) hoping some grandkids would be there…so far 2/2 rejected and 3rd decided not to apply. 5 more to go.
@david5454 I’m sorry to hear about your son
Not mine. My stepson was admitted REA to Mendoza. This is someone from the Legacy Thread – My5Kiddos