Decision day on Instagram. Roommate pages. Admitted student days. It seems like everyone at this time has figured out where they are going to school next year. But what if you don’t? What if you got deferred from a school? The wait can be excruciating for high school seniors.
A college deferral by definition means that a student who applies Early Decision or Early Action application is not accepted or denied, but instead moved to the Regular Decision pool for reconsideration.
This means the college still finds the candidate qualified but wants to review the application alongside a larger, regular applicant pool before making a final decision.
Receiving a deferral is tough. This answer feels unfinished, and students are left feeling unhopeful and disheartened. After all of the hours spent meticulously perfecting the Common App, you’re stuck with a “To be determined” and are waiting another two months without an answer. Even though a deferral feels a tad more positive than a rejection, it would be arguably better to just receive an answer right off the bat. If you’re not fit for a school, then they should just send the rejection, rather than stringing thousands of students along as they sit idly until March.
“The most frustrating point is you’ve been waiting for so long, and you need to wait even more,” Emily Grin ‘26 said.
If you are feeling this way, realize you are not alone. Looking at some of the top colleges that students from East apply to, the number of deferrals is high.
It is estimated that 30-50% of Early Action applicants are deferred from the University of Michigan. It is also estimated that 15,000-17,000 of Clemson’s 26,000 EA applicants in 2023 got deferred. The University of Tennessee-Knoxville is notorious for deferring a lot of out-of-state applicants, along with the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Purdue.
Being deferred makes you feel, in a sense, that you are not good enough. What do you mean you have to compare me to other applicants? Why can’t you just make up an opinion on me now instead of comparing me to everyone else?
Seniors need to realize that being deferred honestly has more to do with the school and the class size rather than the applicants themselves. Sometimes, schools are trying to hit a specific demographic that they need to fill in their class, and they want to see all their options before making a decision. Maybe the school has too many applicants for one major and only wants the top of the top. Sometimes schools just want to see more information from you, like how you succeeded in your senior year classes and excelled in your extracurriculars out of interest and curiosity. While it may be hard, we know, try not to take the deferral personally.
Apart from questioning your academic self-worth, watching other students receive acceptances and begin that process makes it inevitable to feel like you’re behind. Those who were accepted have already begun looking for a roommate, buying clothes for game days, and furniture for their dorm. This is all while you’re still stuck between 5 schools and feel like you’ve gotten nowhere. Even through these stressful feelings of FOMO, it’s important to remember that the process will look different for everyone. Thousands of other students are in the same boat as you. They’re waiting after a deferral and feeling the same stress that you are.
A deferral is not a rejection. It is perfectly normal not know where you are going to school yet at this point in the year. Stay strong through this wait; you are not alone in this process.
