Yale: “Students who apply early will receive one of three decisions in mid-December: Accept, Defer, or Deny … Here’s the deal. A deferral means one thing and one thing only: We need more time to consider your application. It’s important to understand this. You were not deferred because there is something wrong with your application. In fact, it’s quite the opposite: if you were deferred it means your application is strong enough to continue to be seriously considered by the admissions committee.”
“You should not inundate your admissions officer with weekly emails and cards. More often than not it is the required pieces of the applications, like the essays and teacher recommendations that we already have, that make a student stand out for us. For the most part, we have what we need. We’ll get your mid-year grades from your school counselor to see how you’re doing in your senior year classes, and if you want you can send us one letter of update to let us know what you’ve been up to since November 1st.”
“The bottom line is that ‘deferral’ does not mean ‘we need more information’ or ‘something wasn’t good enough.’ It means we see a lot of great potential in you and we just need a little more time to sit in that committee room and mull things over … We appreciate your patience, and you’ll be hearing from us again soon.”
