Yale dramatically changed their ED deferral policy. What does this mean for you?

This year, Yale deferred a dramatically lower number of applicants—only 10%. In a stark change from their Ivy League peers, which defer up to 80% of their applicants in the early process and deny around only 10% each year.

For decades, the Ivies and many other top colleges viewed their Early Decision (or Early Action - Restrictive) policies as a means to accept the top students early in the process, deny only those that clearly fell way below admissions requirements, and leave 70-80% of the remaining applicant pool in a “deferral limbo,” which is when a student is deferred from the early applicant pool to the regular decision pool to be further considered.

The large-scale deferral of students has always had mixed reviews. On one hand, it gives Ivy-League hopefuls an additional chance to provide more information and make their case for admissions, and above all, continued hope for admissions. However, an extremely low number of deferred students get accepted in the regular admissions process. In many cases, lower than 1%—providing most with simply false hope and dragging out an already extraneous process.

Yale’s recent policy change benefits both sides. For Yale, they make more definitive decisions early on, allowing more time for the review of new applicants in the regular decision applicant pool. And for students, they learn of their denial in December, offering more time to focus on other colleges and applications.

And likely, as precedent from previous big changes from one of the Ivies, the others may follow suit.

While recognizing the benefits of this change, we do see a few downfalls for students. For many that we have worked with, especially the most driven students, many additional accomplishments and profile changes can quickly take place senior year or the student may be made aware of new information about their profile that is important to share that they otherwise did not consider. In these cases, when the students submit their “mid-year reports” and letters of continued interest, their profile may be viewed in a completely different light and perspective. And while this success is still scarce, when you are talking about the Ivy League and just a few thousand spots, every one or two additional admit opportunities is significant.

Here at The Ivy Institute, we receive dozens of contacts each December from deferred students that previously did not seek help but now acknowledge the need for an outside, new perspective—giving us the opportunity to significantly improve their overall profile and presentation in the regular decision round.

However, time will tell whether this change leads to more benefits or disadvantages to both the students and colleges.