You applied Early Action to Northeastern because you wanted an early answer and were genuinely excited about the school. Now you’re in limbo and don’t know what to do. We got you.
What to Do if You're Deferred Early Action by Georgetown 2026-2027
What to Do if You're Deferred Early Decision by Northwestern 2026-2027
What to Do if You're Deferred Early Decision by Duke 2026-2027
What to Do if You're Deferred Early Decision by Dartmouth 2026-2027
When you applied to Dartmouth Early Decision, you knew that this could happen. That doesn’t make a deferral decision any easier, though. You aren’t out of the game, but you didn’t get in Early Decision. You might still be accepted, but now you have to act like you won’t and go through the whole rigmarole of the Regular Decision admissions cycle.
What to Do if You're Deferred Early Decision by Columbia 2026-2027
When you applied to Columbia Early Decision, you knew that there were three potential outcomes. You could be accepted — awesome! You could be rejected — huge bummer! And then there was the third possibility: deferral. Being deferred is a hard outcome because it isn’t an outcome at all. You haven’t gotten in, and you may never get in. You also haven’t been rejected, though. Many students receive a deferral and do the equivalent of throwing their hands in the air and relinquishing all control over what comes next. That is the wrong approach for any college, and especially for Columbia. In this post, we’ll break down what to do after a Columbia deferral and how to increase your odds of eventually getting in.
What to Do if You're Deferred Early Decision by Carnegie Mellon 2026-2027
You applied Early Decision to Carnegie Mellon because you loved it. Maybe you’ve been dreaming about the School of Computer Science for years, maybe you fell in love with Pittsburgh, or maybe CMU simply felt like the obvious place for what you want to study. You signed a binding agreement saying you would attend if accepted. And then CMU deferred you, and that sucks. But you can still control some things in this process.
What to Do if You're Deferred from UChicago ED 2026 to 2027
So you didn’t get into UChicago… or rather, should we say, you didn’t get into UChicago yet. It might not feel like it, but getting deferred is actually good news. It means you have another chance of getting into Illinois’ most prestigious research institution. You just need to take a couple of essential steps to maximize your chances of acceptance at UChicago and other top universities.
What to Do if You're Deferred from Vanderbilt ED 2026-2027
Take a deep breath. Getting deferred from Vanderbilt probably represents a pretty big detour from what you were hoping for. However, it isn’t the end of the world. You may still be able to attend Nashville, TN’s favorite research university, but you'll need to take a couple of important steps. This isn’t the time to be discouraged; rather, you need to lock in and maximize your chances at success.
What to Do if You're Deferred Early Decision by Michigan 2026-2027
What to Do if You're Deferred from Yale SCEA 2026 to 2027
Getting deferred isn’t fun, especially when it is from Yale’s SCEA. We know you were probably already envisioning yourself there, and this feels like a full-on Yale-fail. We get it, but don’t get discouraged. You aren’t out of the race yet, and your next steps are important. If you do this right, you will maximize your chances of getting into Yale during RD and set yourself up for success with all your other school choices.
Deferred Early Decision by Amherst College 2026-2027
You applied Early Decision to Amherst because, presumably, you were pretty sure about this one. Amherst wasn’t just another school sitting somewhere near the top of your college list. You signed a binding agreement saying that if Amherst admitted you, you would attend. But then Amherst deferred you.
Deferred from Brown Early Decision 2026-2027
So you got deferred from Brown. Take a deep breath. We know it is hard. You fell in love with Brown and were probably already dreaming of the next four years in Providence, Rhode Island. It's easy to get discouraged, but you aren’t out of the running yet, and there are a couple of steps you need to take. If you do them right, you will not only maximize your chances of getting into Brown during regular decision, but also set yourself up for a top-tier backup.
What to Do if You’re Waitlisted by Swarthmore 2026
Swarthmore is small and tight-knit. They are very careful about who they let in not just academically, but also culturally. This drives down the acceptance rate, and the Swarthmore acceptance rate for the Class of 2029 was only around 8% when you average out the higher Early Decision rate of admission and the much lower Regular Decision acceptance rate.
What to Do if You’re Waitlisted by Northeastern 2026
Northeastern is a prestigious private research university, and they receive about 100,000 applications for first-year admission each year. The first-year acceptance rate for the Class of 2029 on the flagship Boston campus was 5.6%, a jump of half a percentage point from the previous year.
What to Do if You’re Waitlisted by Johns Hopkins 2026
Johns Hopkins University is a highly-respective and equally selective private research university that has soared in selectiveness in recent years. Most recently, for the Class of 2029, the first-year acceptance rate was a little over 4%.
What to Do if You’re Waitlisted by Boston College 2026
Boston College is a private research university with Jesuit origins and a welcoming community. They received nearly 40,000 applications for the Class of 2029, and the acceptance rate was only 13.9%. However, if you read the BC Class of 2029 announcement in March 2025, before decision day and any waitlist action, the acceptance rate was 12.6%. This helps us identify that BC admitted approximately 1% of the first year class from the waitlist.
What to Do if You’re Waitlisted by Carnegie Mellon 2026
The first-year rate of acceptance at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is extremely program-specific. Some programs are exceedingly difficult to get into, while others are more accessible. Of course, they don’t publicize many of these details, though. The overall reported acceptance rate is about 11%, and they have received upwards of 33,000 applications in recent years for just 1,800 spots in the first-year class.
What to Do if You’re Waitlisted by Pomona College 2026
Pomona College aims for a first-year class of 450, but sometimes it takes some finessing to get there. Pomona admissions says that they waitlist about 8% of Regular Decision applicants, and the Pomona waitlist has been slowly growing. For students enrolling for fall 2023, there were 587 students on the waitlist. The next year, the list had 680 students hoping for a spot. And in the 2025-2026 Common Data Set, Pomona reported that 716 of 1017 waitlisted students chose to accept the offer to wait and see.
What to Do if You’re Waitlisted by Rice 2026
Rice University is a highly-selective private research university in Houston, Texas and an 8% acceptance rate. For admission in the fall of 2024, Rice offered nearly 4,000 students a spot on the waitlist — nearly twice as many students as they had even accepted. The desire of applicants to get in wasn’t hampered by the waitlist decision, though. Of that group of students offered a place on the waitlist, even more students than were accepted, 2,794, chose to join the waitlist. Eventually, 122, or 4.4%, were offered a spot in the first-year class.