If you are waiting for early college application decisions, this is a nerve-wracking week. (Most decisions will be released by December 20th.) Wondering what’s next?
- Logistics: Be sure to check your email, and your portal. Schools generally give you at least a little warning that early college application decisions are being released, so make sure that you have access to your portal. You will get one of three decisions: Admit, Deny or Defer.
- Admit is generally self-evident (Congratulations!) If you applied Early Decision, in most cases you need to withdraw your other applications – do so AFTER enrolling. (Officially accept your spot and pay your deposit first.) If you got an alternate start offer but did not request it, meaning that you were admitted to your ED school but asked to start in the spring or off-campus, you are usually allowed to keep your other applications active. (And are released from the binding nature of ED.)
- If you get deferred, you will be reevaluated with the Regular Decision applicants. Applicants are deferred for a million reasons – sometimes even because the schools weren’t able to get through everything! (Looking at you, Texas and Michigan.) Many deferred applicants are eventually admitted – the numbers vary school to school, and year to year. If you applied Early Action, a deferral might also mean that they suspect you are using them as a safety and don’t think that they will yield you, so want to see if you stay in the pool for Regular Decision.
- Deny could also be for many reasons, including overqualification in the pool (especially if you applied Early Action), so don’t freak out. However, if there are lots of unexpectedly negative early results, consider readjusting your RD list, and also think about applying Early Decision 2, if you have an appropriate school on your list that offers it. Furthermore, if you get rejected instead of deferred, it doesn’t automatically mean that you are “less competitive” than people who were deferred. It might mean that the school doesn’t anticipate admitting anyone else with some aspect of your profile, for instance, or that they have already taken 6 student athletes from your small high school and want to diversify their class. That being said, do NOT rewrite your essays. Again, try not to overreact.
- A final note: This process can take longer in some cases, but it doesn’t mean that you won’t ultimately have great results. I have worked with candidates who were deferred or rejected from their Early Decision schools, only to get into even more selective schools Regular Decision. (Including Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Yale, Dartmouth and more.)
Congrats to North Star’s current seniors. I am thrilled that EVERYONE who has heard back so far has been admitted to their Early Decision school. Looking forward to everyone’s continued success!
