Does Deferred from College Mean Rejected?

If we can say anything to those who are reading this blog post, it’s that everything is going to be okay. Seriously! Being deferred is hard. Trust us, we know. People come to us, often, and in a panic: “what does this mean?” Keep reading for some information:

This is the most important takeaway from this blog post: colleges do not defer students out of benevolence. People write to us saying, “I got deferred from my dream college, but it’s probably because they just want to let me down easy now, and I’ll just find out later that I didn’t get in.” This is not something that colleges do. If you apply to X school early, X school has the option of rejecting you right then and there. If you’re in this boat, read what we wrote here.

There is a difference between being deferred and being rejected. Being deferred means that the college is pushing you back into the regular decision pool because they want to see how your application stands up to the rest of the applications. In other words, they want to compare you to those students who wait until late December and/or January to apply.

IMPORTANT: being deferred is not easy, but it is also not a read on who you are as a person. It doesn’t mean that you’re not smart. It doesn’t mean that you won’t get into other schools during the regular round of applications. We know students who got deferred at Northwestern and then got into an Ivy League school in March. It’s undoubtedly a hard pill to swallow, but it doesn’t speak to who you are as person or your capabilities in the future.

And while it is possible to get accepted after being deferred, we advise our blog readers to assume that you won’t be getting into the college. This is the best choice, mentally, because moving forward requires focus, time, and energy. We have resources all over our blog – start here if you want to look ahead, and check back in the coming days for more advice.

Our goal is to provide advice and help our blog readers throughout the complicated and often exhausting college process. If you’re losing steam and could use some help, contact us here.