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Deferrals are the purgatory of Early Decision and Early Action
(ED/EA) college admissions. You're not in, but you're not
out. You're just hanging there, waiting for the April decision-shoe
to fall. It's exquisite anguish. Many applicants would much
rather be rejected outright so that they can just get on with
things, without the unfinished business of "admit" or "deny"
hanging over them.
For the uninitiated, a word of explanation might be in order.
ED and EA admission programs allow students to apply early.
The deadline is usually November 1 (sometimes November 15
or even later). The application process is exactly the same
as Regular Decision (RD), except that in exchange for the
early application, colleges promise to respond with their
decision before the year-end holidays. This can be a great
gift for a high school senior. Having his or her college process
wrapped up before winter break can give an entirely different
flavor to the second half of senior year. Oh, one other note
about ED/EA: ED requires a signed promise to enroll if accepted.
EA doesn't; accepted applicants have until May 1 to decide
whether or not they choose to enroll.
Most ED/EA candidates use early application to court their
first-choice college. In some cases, qualified applicants
stand a slightly better statistical chance of being accepted
early than do their RD counterparts. There's a lot of strategizing
involved in making the decision to apply ED/EA, particularly
in Ivy League admissions and similarly selective processes.
One issue involves financial aid, but that's not what we're
going to talk about here. We'll do that in another article.
For now, though, just be aware that there is an early application
option.
Waitlists are the nasty first cousin of deferrals. Waitlisting
generally occurs in April, or at the time when RD accept/deny
letters come out. If you are waitlisted, you're also neither
in nor out. You're just waiting for a decision that may never
come. Colleges use their waitlists to make sure that every
bed is filled in their dorm rooms. If not enough accepted
students enroll, waitlisted applicants are offered admission.
At the very top schools waitlists are used relatively infrequently
because of the high enrollment percentages of accepted students.
Still, if you've had your heart set on a particular school
and you end up on the waitlist, it can be agonizing. You'll
most likely be forced to enroll at another college while hoping
for that call from the waitlist. Frankly, it doesn't seem
fair at all. Waitlists were designed wholly for the advantage
of the college, not you, so keep that in mind.
Now, to the issue at hand: What should you do if you end
up deferred or waitlisted? The approach is essentially the
same for both. You must undertake a carefully deployed program
of self-marketing to further enhance your "almost good enough"
application. After all, if the colleges deferring or waitlisting
you weren't interested in you, they would have rejected you,
right? Let's take a look at what you can do to improve your
chances of getting in.
Your job is twofold. First, you need to establish a distinguishable
presence with the admissions office without becoming a pest.
Second, you need to reveal more of yourself and your sincere
passion to attend your target college. How do you do this?
Well, you should start to execute this plan the moment you
find out that you have been deferred or waitlisted. Don't
sit around and mope. Take action immediately. If you don't,
who will? To borrow a phrase from Paul Simon, then, here's
the plan, Stan:
First, you need to find a human being in the admissions office
who is willing to communicate with you by e-mail or phone.
This may well be the regional rep for your area of the country.
Your job is to find out who this person is. Call admissions
and ask for that person's name and e-mail address. If they
won't reveal the e-mail address, ask to be connected to that
person by phone. If they won't do that, get the person's name
(they should be willing to give that out) and write him/her
a letter requesting an avenue of contact (again, e-mail is
preferable).
Once you have established contact with the admissions rep,
then you must keep that person informed on a regular basis
about your recent accomplishments (academic, EC, personal
life) and deepening passion for that college. Over the course
of your marketing campaign, you should make four-to-five contacts
with this person. In addition to your e-mails, you can snail-mail
any cool things that involve you from the school newspaper,
local newspaper, or anything else where your name appears
in print. This is part of marketing your ongoing progress
as an outstanding student, athlete, theater arts person, or
whatever.
Try to get one more significant recommendation from someone
who really knows you well and who may have a unique angle
on your intangible qualities (personal integrity, creativity,
etc.). That might be a friend, parent, relative, pastor, or
supervisor. The important condition is that this person must
be able to write extremely convincingly and with great focus
on who you are as a person. They should use anecdotes to illustrate
your uniqueness and how you are perfectly suited to that college.
If this person knows something about the particular college
in question, that's even better.
A real clincher would be if you could win some kind of major
honor or award, such as a state- or national-level title or
something. This might not be possible, but if you're a high
performer, one never knows.
Deferrals & Waitlists Summary: Find the key person
in admissions, establish contact, and keep in touch regularly
with meaningful communications. Granted, this takes a lot
of careful and diligent effort. However, when that deferral
or waitlist letter arrives, you have to ask yourself one critical
question: "How badly do I really want to attend this college?"
Your answer to that question should determine your course
of action. If you decide to go for it, use this plan. It should
give you your very best shot. Best wishes on your college
admissions quest!
Finally if you don't want to deal with all of this you can
and should look into online
degrees. These days more and more colleges are offering
complete degrees online.
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