After months waiting for admission results, decision day finally arrives, and…your application is deferred or you are offered a spot on a waitlist. As an Independent Educational Consultant, I believe “clear is kind.” It’s important to take appropriate action if you’re still interested in this college, but you also need to consider that a deferral or waitlist offer might not result in an offer of admission.
What Is an Admissions Deferral?
All you really know with a deferral is that the college was not yet ready to make a decision about your application. This most often happens when a student applies under an early round of admission, like Early Decision or Early Action. You won’t know if this is a positive or negative signal. Some colleges defer every student who wasn’t admitted from their Early Decision or Early Action pools. Other colleges only defer students who were generally competitive and might have a chance of admission from a later applicant pool. And sometimes deferrals simply mean the college received more applications than were able to review.
Deferral Action Steps
Because every college operates independently, it’s crucial to follow their specific instructions. There are a range of possibilities:
- No action required. All deferred applications are considered as originally submitted.
- Request continued consideration. Students respond to their deferral letter and indicate that they still wish to be considered for admission. This could be as simple as an online form.
- Provide additional information. Some colleges allow or require deferred students to share mid-year grades, update them on new achievements, or send a Letter of Continued Interest in the college (sometimes called a LOCI).
Limit yourself to what the college allows and asks for. In other words, follow instructions. Usually the communication sharing your deferral status will lay out what to do next. Read that carefully and respond by deadlines.
If the college requests mid-year grades and your term ends after their deadline, reach out to your school counselor and your assigned admissions rep for guidance. The college may be able to wait a bit longer or your school might be able to provide a grade estimate.
What Else Can You Do?
- Be patient.
- If it’s one of your top colleges but you’ve never visited, you might want to plan a visit if the college considers demonstrated interest in admissions. (Check question C7 of their Common Data Set)
- Focus on completing any other pending applications.
- Start to engage with the colleges that DID offer you an admissions slot.
- Don’t forget to enjoy senior year; you only get to experience this moment once. It would be a shame to spend these moments worrying about something you can’t control.
Advanced Strategy: Switch to Early Decision
- If they offer you the choice of switching from a non-binding application option like Early Action or Regular Decision to a binding Early Decision option, consider if this school is your first choice and if you would attend if admitted. Early Decision can have a higher admissions rate, but it prevents you from comparing your other admissions offers.
What About College Waitlists?
A college waitlist isn’t a ranked list. It’s more of a giant pool of students who were qualified, but not chosen for admission. The college can select students from this pool if they need to fill out the incoming class.
- Don’t rely on a waitlist offer. Many colleges put thousands of students on their waitlist, but admit a handful (or none at all).
- Realize that the waitlist serves the college’s priorities. They may admit only for specific majors, for geographic diversity, or because a student doesn’t need financial aid to attend.
- Know your college budget. Since waitlist offers usually have short deadlines, your family needs to know their budget and what net price would make the college a viable option for you. Having this family conversation in advance helps you go through the emotional process on your timeline, not under the college’s pressure to enroll.
- Move on emotionally: This may be easier said than done, but the reality is that most students on a waitlist are not offered admission. Once you indicate that you are willing to accept a waitlist spot, shift focus to the offers you do have, choose the best option for you, and move forward with enrollment action steps.
If you are offered admission from a waitlist, you don’t have to accept it. You can stay with your previous choice – many students find at this point that they genuinely prefer the school they’ve chosen.
If you do accept a waitlist offer, remember that you can only enroll at one college at a time. You’ll need to take action to withdraw your enrollment if you deposited elsewhere.
Final Thoughts
Deferrals and waitlists can feel frustrating, because they extend the decision timeline into a limbo you don’t control. Remember that your engagement as a college student matters much more than which college you attend. Your value as a person and future success depend on your actions, not the decisions of strangers in an admissions office.
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