Brinda Ambal

This is a chance to take a hard look in the mirror and consider what the weaknesses in your application are.

There’s a gray area in college admissions that you might not have thought about before — or maybe you’re painfully aware of it, hence you clicking on this article. The assumption that there are only two possible outcomes, accepted or rejected, isn’t true. That’s because applicants can also be deferred or waitlisted. 

To clarify, a deferral means that you applied early to a school and they aren’t accepting or rejecting you yet. Rather, they’ll reconsider your application in the regular decision round. If a school places you on their waitlist, typically in regular decision, they’ll likely wait to see how many admitted students actually enroll (i.e. their “yield rate”) before making any further decisions. Here are some tips to navigating the deferral/waitlist process.

Assess your chances

A deferral usually means you’re still in the running, but a spot on the waitlist can be a de facto rejection. Some schools almost never accept people off the waitlist, while others do so fairly frequently. Google “[School name] Common Data Set” and go to Section C2 of their report to see their waitlist statistics. It’s important to note, however, that the beginning of the pandemic dramatically increased waitlist movement in Spring 2020. And since kids from my class applied all over the place but can only attend one school, Spring 2021 is also expected to have more waitlist admits than usual. If overall application numbers remain sky high next year, I imagine this could continue to be the case, but I’m not going to bother trying to predict the future. You should probably look at the past five or so years of waitlist data to get a more accurate picture.

Mentally and emotionally, I think you should treat a deferral/waitlist from your dream school like a rejection and start to seriously consider where else you’d like to go. The odds of getting in can be a longshot (particularly if waitlisted) at this point, but as far as your actions go, you don’t have to give up entirely. There are definitely things you can do to improve your chances. Besides, the only thing you lose by trying is the time it takes to make one last push.

Get your ducks in a row

Throughout this piece, you’ll see a lot of references to these excellent waitlist and deferral guides from a former admissions officer at UChicago and UC Berkeley. Both of them are worth a read in their entirety if you want more detailed information. Before I give advice on what to do after receiving your decision, I suggest that you keep a running list of your senior year accomplishments. You can update schools on your new achievements (extracurricular awards, improved test scores, etc.) before decisions come out and/or after you get deferred/waitlisted.

One often overlooked resource in this process is your counselor. I can’t speak for them, but some high schools build relationships with certain colleges over the years. To be honest, I don’t know if Parkway West has significant ties at any elite school, with the possible exception of WashU since so many students apply there. (Politely) asking a counselor to contact a school on your behalf can achieve the following, according to the aforementioned posts: “reaffirming that their university is your top choice, highlight your achievements or address any potential concerns an admissions officer may have had when evaluating your application [and/or] seek feedback on your application [about] whether or not there’s anything you can do to affirm your interest in the university and value you would bring to campus, if admitted.”

Additionally, you’ll want to load up on information about a school for the letter of continued interest (LOCI) that you will eventually write. Reach out to current students of that school, your alumni interviewer (if applicable) and possibly even deans at the school. (Definitely read the waitlist post I hyperlinked earlier before trying the latter.) The aforementioned admissions officer guide tells a story about a student that they worked with as a consultant. Through these types of interactions, the applicant learned that “students were really entrepreneurial” at the school she was waitlisted at, so she asked about “ways in which her entrepreneurial interests could be furthered at the university.” When she wrote her LOCI to the admissions office (more on that in a moment), she was now able to “craft a description of how her interests perfectly matched the university’s offerings. She was incredibly detailed in her correspondence.”

You can also ask for an alumni interview if you didn’t receive one earlier, although you might have to reach out to the interview coordinator in your area instead of the admissions office itself. Assuming the interview goes well — see this post for my interviewing tips —  you can ask them to send in a recommendation. You might also consider asking someone else for an additional rec letter if you know they would write a quality recommendation.

Another important thing to do is take a hard look in the mirror and consider what the weaknesses in your application are. Was there something you could have explained better (e.g. your accomplishments in an extracurricular activity) the first time around? Place yourself in an admissions officer’s shoes. What would give you reason to move your application from the admit to defer/waitlist pile? You might want to address these things in your LOCI.

Write a letter of continued interest (LOCI)

Now it’s time to actually write your LOCI. Some schools will have specific requests, but otherwise, there aren’t many hard and fast rules.

“[There is] no specific word limit, but try to keep [your LOCI] to a page if you’re typing it up in Word or Google Docs,” the aforementioned waitlist guide explains. “[Admissions officers] are busy and they don’t have a ton of time to read an unfocused, meandering email. Be concise and pack your email with value about who you are and who you’ll be on their campus.”

Like with the “why school?” supplemental essay (if you’re curious, click here for that section), merely blabbering on about how great School X is won’t do you any favors. Rather, you need to give your admissions officer a better idea of why you and their school are the perfect fit. Here is a rough outline of what a LOCI could look like, assuming the school in question doesn’t have specific requirements they want you to follow. Keep in mind that you need to do a great job personalizing everything, so take my outline with a grain of salt. (Here are several example LOCIs as well.)

• “Dear Admissions Officer [Last Name],”
• Thank them for the continued consideration.
• Clearly state that [insert school] is your top choice and, if accepted, you will absolutely attend. (Schools want to be confident that waitlist admits will actually enroll.)
• (If applicable) Mention your conversations with students, faculty, alumni, etc., and start giving the admissions office a better picture of how your values and aspirations align with the school’s.
• Mention new accomplishments/what you’ve been up to since applying, and connect those to how you will contribute on their campus. This is a great spot to discuss specific academic/research opportunities, activities/organizations, etc. Again, the goal is to create a more three-dimensional image of yourself and what you would bring to the table.
• Thank them for their time and close with a line about how excited you are about the possibility of attending their school.
• Sincerely, [your name and any other necessary info like an applicant ID number, if applicable]

As far as when to write/submit your LOCI, I’ve seen consultants recommend mid-late January if you were deferred in an early round of admissions. In other words, focus on your looming regular decision deadlines, then turn your attention to LOCIs after those are done. If waitlisted in the spring, “April, after you’ve received all your other decisions but before they receive final numbers regarding the size of their incoming class” is a good time to submit. One addendum to that last point: if you got waitlisted from your favorite school, you might as well get a head start on this process while you wait to hear back from others.

How the commitment process works for waitlisted applicants

Let’s say you’re on the waitlist at your top choice school. Pretend you’ve already been rejected for a moment: what’s your next move? Unless it’s “dream school or bust” for you, that probably means it’s time to choose a school from your list of acceptances and/or apply to rolling admissions schools that are still accepting applications. Waitlist decisions usually don’t start to trickle out until early-mid May, so in the meantime you should formally commit to another school by their enrollment deposit deadline, which is almost always May 1. If you are eventually admitted from the waitlist, you’ll then have to accept that school’s offer of admission and explain to the other school that you’ll no longer be attending due to your waitlist results.