Essays and other work finally completed, you take a deep breath and hit the application “submit” to your first-choice school. Please heed: Don’t wait until five minutes before the midnight deadline to dispatch your application. There are too many things that can go wrong and cause you to miss the deadline. Your computer can freeze, you could discover that you are over a word count and the essay box on your application automatically rejects it, you may fail to notice an error that is hard to correct, or you encounter some personal issue at home. On the college end, hundreds or even thousands of students may wait until the last minute to file—crashing the school’s servers. It may not be your fault that you get locked out, but at the least you may find yourself emailing the admissions officer sheepishly explaining why your application is late. And with a crush of applications, schools might be looking for any reason to reject yours. It may not be fair, but it happens. That’s why you should plan on filing at least twenty-four hours before the deadline.
When you receive a rejection notice from your school of choice, an initial period of disappointment or shock is understandable (try to stay away from social media, it probably won’t help your disappointment). Grieve for a brief period, but realize: It’s not personal. The odds are you will never find out why you were rejected, and it may have nothing to do with your essay or your application. Your application may be good—in some cases, too good. Schools are concerned with their yield, that is, the percentage of students accepted who actually attend. If a college believes you are more likely to attend another school, it may reject you to preserve its yield. In other cases, schools openly admit there are many rejected students with applications every bit as good as those accepted. It simply becomes a numbers game. It doesn’t say anything about you.
The screenwriter who we mentioned before, William Goldman (The Princess Bride and not coincidentally All the President’s Men), wrote in direct, simple sentences. He once explained the film industry in three words, “Nobody knows anything.” He meant that no one can predict which movies will be successful or why. College admissions are the same; no one really knows anything. A student with a great application who looks like a “lock” can be deferred or even rejected, and another student with a less impressive application might be accepted. What happens in a college admissions meeting room is closely guarded and rarely travels outside the room. Although patterns and probabilities can be identified, no prediction for an individual student is certain until the moment he or she is notified (and even then, students can do things that prompt schools to rescind an admission, a topic we will discuss).
That’s why you must have a backup plan in place. If you planned well, you should have applied to other schools besides your first choice. Most people do apply to more than one school, but not everyone does.
Whether or not you have, it’s time to reevaluate your situation. Talk to your parents and to your college counselor. You may have to apply to other schools, and you should start your research right away (more applications probably mean more essays to write). Besides applying to other colleges, consider the community college option. Community colleges are an important part of the college process. They can provide a good education, usually at a reasonable price. After time spent at a community college, students can apply to four-year schools, many of which have designated spots for community college graduates. Sometimes, a backup school is a better fit than your first choice. There are plenty of students who attend their first choice and decide to transfer after a year or two. At a backup school, you may get a better financial package, your education path may change, you may meet amazing friends and perhaps even a life partner. Or you may just have a more enjoyable experience.
Finally, if you are still interested in the first-choice school that rejected you after high school, you can reapply after a year or two of college. It means performing well at the school you are attending, and when you apply you will probably have to write to your first-choice school explaining why you want to transfer. Some students eventually do wind up at their first-choice school after going somewhere else for a year or two. Whatever happens, you’re better off with a good plan at the outset.
If you applied Early Action or Early Decision to your first-choice school, come December you may find out you are in limbo—neither accepted or rejected, but deferred. The school has removed you from the Early Decision pool and placed you along with the applicants in the regular round. This is a good news/bad news situation. The good news is that you have not been rejected. The bad news is most schools ultimately accept only a small number of deferred students, usually in the range of 5 to 10 percent. But there are some things that you can do to enhance your chances.
The schools are still interested in you and your progress; many schools are tracking your visits to their website and how long you stayed at their site (welcome to the twenty-first century). Make sure you check out your school’s website regularly while you wait for your decision.
But there are other things they are even more interested in. The first is your grades. The days of coasting academically during your senior year are long past. You must have good grades in your first semester of your senior year. Colleges do not like a C in your freshman year, but they may understand it. However, they hate, absolutely hate, Cs on your senior-year transcript. It gives them a reason to put your deferred application in the final rejection pool. It is crucial that you improve every borderline grade. You will have to inform the school of your first semester final grades. If your SAT or ACT score was not great, consider taking the test again. You can never tell when a higher score will make a difference.
Send an email to the admissions liaison expressing interest. Include your first semester grades and updated GPA (both good), any awards or honors you have won, if you have been on a successful team in the fall (e.g., state volleyball championship), and an explanation of why the school is still your first choice. This must be honest and from the heart. Here is a good sample letter from a student (the names have been de-identified) who was initially deferred:
Hello Ms. XXX,
I hope you had a wonderful New Year! I applied Restrictive Early Action to Notre Dame and was deferred. I would like to express my continued desire to attend Notre Dame, and it remains my first choice for college.
Also, I want to update you and let you know that I received the XXX Scholar honor this semester. My current semester grades:
AP Microeconomics: 96%
AP Spanish Language and Culture: 97%
AP English Language and Composition: 93%
Honors Environmental Science: 87%
Honors Pre-Calculus: 88%
Christology: 94%
Graphic Design: 99%
XXX will send my official transcript with my first semester senior year grades soon. I will give my best effort this semester, and I know that I can raise my Bs to As. In early March, I will send you my second semester quarter grades.
Notre Dame is the ideal school for me because its community is rooted in Catholic values, which are extremely important to me. Notre Dame is also the perfect place to explore my many interests with the First Year Advising program and the flexibility of not having to declare a major until the end of sophomore year.
I want to go to an excellent academic institution with a caring environment. On the school tour, my guide said Notre Dame is a top-ranked academic institution, and students are devoted to helping each other succeed in and outside the classroom. I feel I would thrive in this setting and this community. I would be honored to attend Notre Dame.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
XXX
Some colleges will take letters of recommendation for your application. You might ask in your email if you can have someone send a letter or an email of support. Seek out any help you can. You may have people in your corner who will support you—high school counselor, senior teacher, coach, important alumnus. See if one or two of them—but not all of them—will write a letter in support of you to the admissions committee.
You must show interest, but remember not to become a pest. Don’t contact the admissions people too often. Quality, not quantity.
Notice the difference here—what not to do. Technically, you are not actually accepted; it is a provisional offer. You are accepted provided that you do nothing during your senior year that would make the school rescind your acceptance. More than one student has been accepted to college and then had to face the embarrassment of having his or her acceptance withdrawn. Sometimes that happens so late in the academic year that the student has no options (in addition to the fact that what caused the revocation may cause other schools to shy away). Don’t worry, though, because this is one aspect of the admission process that is totally in your control. Many things may provoke a school to rescind your acceptance. They fall into three general categories: academic performance, honesty, and misbehavior.
By far, the most common reason schools revoke an admission is because of a student’s academic performance. Colleges monitor how you are doing during your senior year and you cannot afford to let your grades slip. Colleges don’t buy “senioritis” as an excuse. This means maintaining your GPA and especially no Ds or Fs. It’s a red flag when someone who has received all As and Bs for three and a half-years suddenly has Cs and a D during their senior year. It goes without saying you should not fail any courses during your senior year of high school.
Schools expect their students to be honest. This means you cannot lie on your application; schools are harsh if they discover that you failed to report a past involvement with the law. You cannot burnish your resume with courses you did not take or things you did not do (the 2019 college admission scandal had applicants playing for sports teams in sports they never participated in). Dishonesty also encompasses cheating. If you are caught cheating, it will almost certainly be reported to your college, and the school may revoke your admission. Likewise, falsifying term papers and plagiarism. You cannot buy a term paper. As for plagiarism, colleges are intensifying their efforts to root it out. Some high schools and colleges use plagiarism tools to detect work that has been taken from other sources. (Don’t even think of “borrowing substantially” from any of the essays in this book!)
Finally, misbehavior. This covers a wide range—everything from a senior prank gone wrong during prom or graduation to criminal behavior. Senior pranks may be fun, but high schools and colleges frown on them. Anything that would jeopardize your graduation from high school will probably force a college to rescind your admission, because, well, you have to graduate high school. A felony arrest—drunk driving, sexual assault, drug offense—must be reported to the school right away, even if you are not guilty (especially if you are not guilty). Also, be aware of social media. Students have had their admissions revoked because they have been involved in cyberbullying, have posted inappropriate messages on Twitter, or have had inappropriate pictures displayed on Instagram or Facebook. Think before acting.