It’s normal and natural to feel anxiety over the outcome after submitting your college applications. Acceptance is a possibility, but so is rejection, and then there’s the possibility of deferral (if you have applied to meet the early decision or action deadlines).

What’s A Deferral?

Springer, Reider, and Johnson’s Admissions Matters describes a deferral as: “a decision by a college to delay a final response to an early action or early decision application until the regular decision cycle.”

Is a deferral bad news? Well, getting deferred is not a bad omen, if that’s what you’re wondering. Who gets deferred is not necessarily a sign of your strength as an applicant. It does not mean that you will not accepted to an university. What is does mean is that your application will now be evaluated amongst the pool of fresh new applications that come in during the regular decision application cycle.

It is not abnormal for colleges to receive thousands upon thousands of applications more than can fill the empty spots in an incoming Freshman class. Indeed, more so-called top-ranked colleges are reporting a record-breaking number of applications with each passing year!

Let’s take a look at the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor, one of my alma maters. According to CollegeData, there are approximately 29,000 undergraduate students total, and the entrance difficulty is “very difficult.” In the 2017-2018 application cycle, UM received a little 56,000 unique applications. Count that. More applications for the incoming Freshman class than all students currently enrolled at the university!

If a sizeable portion of those applicants applied in time to meet the November 1 early action deadline, you can bet that UM could have filled their entire Freshman class before the regular decision candidates got a chance to be considered. (Of course, this does not happen). Likely the strongest of the strong applicants were welcomed with an acceptance, but many, many students were deferred and pushed onto the regular decision round.

Eventually, about 29% of those almost 56,000 applicants were offered admission. This amounts to about 15,950 students.

What Should You Do If Deferred?

Here’s what I recommend to students: FIRST, DO NOT PANIC.

If the college is still your #1 choice, then let ’em know how you feel. It’ll take a few moments to conduct some research and determine how to contact the Office of Admissions. Draft out a simple email letting them know of your continued desire to attend this college and send over any applicable updates that may have bearing on your final admissions decision. Send over first-semester grades. Inform them if you’ve won any additional awards or honors that are not reflected in your current application. Thank them kindly…. and wait patiently.

Of course, in this waiting period, you may receive an acceptance from TRUE top choice college. Congratulations. If you, your parents, and the financial aid award letter are agreeable, and you are absolutely, positively sure that you will be attending this other college instead, then kindly let the admissions office know that you would like to withdraw your application.

Also, make sure to open and read carefully any additional emails sent by the college while you’re waiting to back if your deferral will be turned to an acceptance. You do not want to miss out on any important upcoming communications.

Deferrals aren’t the easiest decision to deal with. After all, you submitted your application early so that you’d hear back early, right? And now you’re still playing the waiting game with one of your top choices. How you’re feeling is totally understandable.

And still… do not panic. The deferral decision will be overcome for some students, and others, unfortunately, will not receive an offer of admission. Hold tight. Either way, a final decision is soon on its way, and if you’ve done a diligent job in devising a well-balanced college list, you have lots of other great college choices to choose from anyway.