Letters of Continued Interest

Applying to College
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Hi everyone! I hope 2024 is going well for all of yall!

I’m currently drafting a Letter of Continued Interest for Georgetown, as I was deferred from their REA round. Any tips for what I should include in the letter, besides the standard “Im still interested in attending X University”? I’m also going to coordinate with my school’s College Counselor as well.

Thanks!

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From another thread. I agree. Gtown defers everyone -Vs rejecting. sending a letter is unlikely to help.

The purpose of LOCI is to highlight for the admissions committee how you’ve grown as an applicant. They know you’re still interested in attending, but the letter will emphasize recent accomplishments that they might not notice or appreciate through an initial glance at both applications. That’s why you should only really send it if you have improved your application — grades, test scores, and extracurriculars — since you last applied.

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I tend to think of letters of continued interest being for waitlist, not deferral, but I could be wrong.

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It is fine to write a short LOCI (admissions officers are not looking for another essay to read). I would include:
– IF TRUE, state that Gtown is your top choice. And again, IF TRUE, you can state that “if accepted I will attend.”
–Also note any meaningful achievements, awards, etc. that happened after your application was submitted (if applicable).

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Unless there is a significant new achievement, I think a LOCI at this stage could just annoy admissions. They are busy. What if every deferred applicant wrote a letter? It is appropriate for waitlist because people are making commitments elsewhere or holding off.

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We can agree to disagree. I woud write a short LOCI – but ONLY IF: 1) the candidate wants to honestly state that the college is his/her first choice OR 2) there is a meaningful achievement since the application. I would keep any LOCI very brief.

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I agree that if both those conditions are true, particularly if there is some meaningful new achievement, a LOCI is fine. Now, it may be ignored, but I don’t think there is a downside and it might be helpful.

I do think if it’s just to state it’s the top choice and there isn’t anything else to add, it will not move the needle.

Edit, students often send in important updates before regular decisions are released (not necessarily EA or ED applicants) so I think this situation is similar.

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Hi again, for anyone still willing to help me out this late in the process:
I’ve been waitlisted at two schools, and have accepted a place on the waiting list - Georgetown & Swarthmore, and I’m currently writing LOCIs for both.

About a month ago, I wrote a LOCI following some of the advice here after Georgetown deferred me from REA to RD. I’m planning on using this as the base, for my Swarthmore LOCI. However, reading back through said LOCI, I found that ~75% of it contained detailed descriptions of updates, while only about ~25% was institution-specific.

Should I rewrite it to include more about my fit to Swarthmore, and reduce the space used to discuss updates? I’m inclined to do so, as this is an actual waitlist versus a deferral, but at the same time I have 4 updates to talk about.

For my new Georgetown LOCI, I’m planning on going 80% fit-to-school, and 20% updates (I have only 1 update for now.)

Thanks!

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