当你的申请被延期了,也就是说还有机会

英文原文

So you have been deferred….that means there’s still a chance.

As students begin to hear back from colleges about their applications, one typically expects an acceptance or rejection letter. However, in the middle of a pandemic when the U.S. is uncertain about international students being able to attend courses in person due to visa challenges and a pandemic which impacts the abilities of schools to conduct classes live, enrollment concerns run high for colleges and universities.  Furthermore, with so many test optional admissions this year, schools were ill prepared to suddenly evaluate applicants without the use of standardized test scores.  Thus, schools may be creating a more robust ‘deferred list’ this year as a precautionary measure so that they can evaluate larger candidate pools. If you receive a deferral offer, here are things to consider and expect.

What is a deferral?

On one hand, being deferred is disappointing because it means you were not accepted and now, you must continue to wait (if you choose) about your application status.  While you were good enough to be considered, for a host of reasons you were not accepted directly in this first round of admissions and a college is basically looking to reevaluate your application against others who will be applying.  If you applied early action or early decision and were deferred, it is likely that your application will be compared to others who apply regular decision and a school will then select their additional students based upon what type of class they plan to create for the upcoming school year (e.g., have a number of female STEM students graduated last year? If so, they may want to accept more such students; has the number of international students from China increased in the past 3 admission cycles for this school? If this is the case, they may accept less from the incoming applicant group).  

What to do when deferred

The immediate thing to do when you are deferred is to decide if you still want to continue to be considered for admission.  Because being deferred often means some more work on your part — e.g., submitting additional materials to supplement your application — you may choose to decline the deferral and instead, withdraw your application. The most common reason for withdrawing your application would be that you have already been accepted at another school that you plan to attend.  In this case, doing additional work would not make sense; ‘amassing’ a certain number of acceptances does not make any difference because it is not something you would boast about later in job interviews or such.  A secondary reason to decline waiting on a deferral decision is if you only applied to the school because you felt you had to, but have no interest in really attending. Thus, completing supplementary materials to submit to this school does not make sense when you could be focusing on doing well in your current school courses, or focusing on preparing supplementary materials for the schools you do care about.

Once you receive notice you have been deferred, read the email instructions carefully because you may be required to respond within a deadline: if they say you must respond to still be considered for admission, make sure you respond based on their requirements.  If you plan to withdraw your application, it is courteous to let the school know you plan to do this — a simple email will suffice (you never know if you may apply to this school again for whatever reason; records can be held for a long time so do not risk damaging your reputation with the universities).

Waiting for a decision

If you accept being deferred and want to wait for the decision, carefully read what the school expects you to do.  If they allow you to submit supplementary materials, follow the instructions carefully and do not go beyond what they expect.  Some schools (e.g. New York University) are very precise about what they allow students to submit and if you do not follow their instructions, you have demonstrated your inability to follow instructions, which will likely negatively impact the school’s impression of you. If they ask for additional essays, make sure you read the prompt very carefully and address each part of the question (one of the most common mistakes Chinese international students make in answering essay questions is not actually reading and understanding the question that is asked).  Do not assume that being deferred means you will be accepted later; if you have been accepted at another school that you could see yourself attending, you should put a deposit in at that institution while you wait for an update on your deferral status. 

Most likely, you will be evaluated again after the regular decision deadline alongside the regular decision applicants.  You will then receive notification of your updated acceptance or rejection later in the year.  At that time, you can revisit all the schools you have been accepted to, consider what each has to offer you, and accept the offer that is most appropriate for you.