My older son got deferred from two top choices many eons ago. He stepped up his game and finally got the two outside recommendations I’d been nagging him to get. He ended up rejected from the two colleges that deferred him, but he had plenty of excellent choices and ended up at a place that I think may have been a better place for him than his top choice. He’d actually heard from a safety at Thanksgiving that he was in and would be getting merit money so even though December wasn’t exactly happy, he knew he was going to college.
Younger son got an EA deferral and an EA acceptance from a college he never dreamed he’d get into. (It’s since become even more selective as it has shot up the ranks.) He still managed to spend a great deal of winter break writing essays, including ones for the school he ended up attending.