@HM0527 I received mine about a week after decisions were released. A week and a half, maybe. I am in Arizona and I am not in the gateway program so I don’t know if that affects anything. Hope this helps!
@bachbend it does help. Hoping our D receives something just as an acknowledgement. Happy New Year!!!
Observer Student Newspaper, Wednesday, January 16, 2019:
https://ndsmcobserver.com/2019/01/university-welcomes-early-admits-for-class-of-2023/
Thanks for sharing the article @hpcsa. This caught my eye:
“This year, 1,375 applicants — 19 percent— were deferred to the regular decision pool. Bishop said, on average, about 100 applicants are accepted during the regular application round. If an applicant is deferred, Bishops advises them to demonstrate they are still interested in attending, and update the University on any changes in their grades, activities or awards.”
Is 100 a typical number that they pull from the deferral pool? Seems so small!
@WineLover Yes I agree, stated ‘about 100 applicants’ or approx. 7.3% ultimate admission rate of REA deferred students seems to be at the low end. Having said this, Don Bishop normally always gets his numbers straight. I personally do believe, within reason, ‘self campaigning’ is important and necessary for deferred ND REA applicants during the RD admission phase.
Hello @WineLover @hpcsa Happy New Year!! I hope y’all are doing great and enjoying 2019 so far!! Thank you @hpcsa for that article. I don’t where our daughter falls in those numbers but we’re still thrilled to be a part of the Irish!
@HM0527 You are very welcome. All health, success and happiness to you and your family as well! Without any doubt, the Gateway program is a very attractive option to those students who have been offered it at the end of the REA process and a much preferable position to be in, compared to many of the students awaiting RD decisions including those deferred during REA. Ultimately, Gateway students will seamlessly integrate into the general ND student population. Additional Gateway 2019/2020 students will be joining the group as part of the ND Regular Decision process.
@hpcsa guess I should where my glasses while on CC!! “I don’t KNOW where our daughter falls in those numbers” after reading what you just responsed, it solidifies the feeling of how lucky our D is!
So how would you guys recommend expressing continuing interest for someone who was deferred? Or son’s plan is to send a well worded email to the regional AO with updated grades in challenging classes from the fall semester and emphasizing interest in ND as his number 1 choice buy expanding on why. Any other suggestions?
@VACrew This will be a first good step for your son to take! His regional AO will be the person to move on your son’s application and, if successful, to present his updated REA application at deferred student reviews during the forthcoming Regular Decision process. Best of luck and success to your son!
@hpcsa Thanks much. He has great SAT/GPA/AP performance credentials, expressed interest throughout and a letter of support from a ND coach but the numbers game and quality of the competition is daunting.
@VACrew good luck to your son. Our D was offered a spot with the ND/HC Gateway during REA and gladly accepted it. Your son, from my understanding also has a chance of being offered a spot as well if he doesn’t get through the deferred regular decision round. Best of Luck!!!
" Yes I agree, stated ‘about 100 applicants’ or approx. 7.3% ultimate admission rate of REA deferred students seems to be at the low end."
Recognize that a good chunk of the 1375 deferred kids will opt out of the ND admissions process or won’t bother to continue to actively pursue it. So the practical/effective admit rate for the deferreds who do stay in the game is certainly somewhat higher than 7.3%.
The numbers oriented folks on these boards have previously debated whether a deferral is a mild positive or a mild negative to your ultimate chances. No one knows for sure because no one knows how many kids opt out. For planning purposes, you should probably assume that (assuming you stay in the game) a defer gives you the same chance as the overall ND RD admit rate. Ballpark 15% or so.
“Recognize that a good chunk of the 1375 deferred kids will opt out of the ND admissions process or won’t bother to continue to actively pursue it.”
This surprises me, given that those kids gave up a shot to ED somewhere else in order to apply to ND REA.
I thought Don Bishop was actually quite clear when he said in the article quoted above “Notre Dame … aims to save more than half of applicants for the regular admission pool, lowering the number of (REA) students accepted this year.” and “Lower-income households, first-generation households don’t apply as early and want more time to decide and spend more time applying … so the higher percentage of class that you cash in early may create an equity of access in regular action. A higher percentage of those groups come in the regular action pool, so if you overstuffed the first early fruit, you’ve really eliminated — to some degree — opportunity, and we don’t want to do that.”
Applying early through REA on average does not give students an inherent advantage and it was never meant as a type of “admission backdoor”. The fact that admission chances of deferred REA students in the Regular Decision round hovers around 7% - very, very few REA applicants will actually withdraw their pending application for the Regular Decision round - simply underlines this fact. REA undoubtedly may be an advantage for students if and only if both Notre Dame is their first choice and they are therefore not limited in their decision to apply ED somewhere else, and those students are at the very top of the applicant pool or otherwise hooked with the university. The Regular Decision process on the other hand will continue to provide student diversity in terms of URM’s, first-generation and /or lower-income households that REA is not designed for and therefore never will be able to deliver.
Just an FYI, my daughter (now a ND sophomore) had been deferred and got in RD…it happens. Good luck! You’ll end up where God wants you…spread your love there.
“This surprises me, given that those kids gave up a shot to ED somewhere else in order to apply to ND REA.”
@suzy100 – A 7% admit rate for deferred kids would be pretty grim. I really doubt that is the case.
You’d expect the defer pool to merit roughly the same admit rate as the RD pool does. The defer pool doesn’t include the top 20% kids (who got admitted REA) and also doesn’t include the bottom 60% kids (who got denied REA). So it would be quite a surprise if that caliber of pre-sorted pool only scores a 7% admit rate. If it were that tough, it would be dumb for ND to defer that many kids – what’s the point?
My surmise is that ND makes the defer pool (like how the wait list works) as large as it does because ND knows the defer pool gets depleted – A LOT. Kids get in early to UVA, UMich, Gtown, BC and other schools. Kids get in where they applied ED2. After getting a defer disappointment, many move on and embrace other attractive opportunities.
While ND defer kids may not officially withdraw, many won’t focus on self-promoting and pursuing the ND defer opportunity. And given how focused the top schools are on their yields, ND is going to be VERY selective on who they pluck out of the defer pool. If they haven’t heard much from a kid, ND knows that’s a lower yield proposition. And schools like ND hate it when those offers don’t turn into enrollees.
So as a practical matter, imo the kids who self-select to pursue their defer opportunity aren’t facing anything as tough as a 7% real world admit rate.
“My surmise is that ND makes the defer pool (like how the wait list works) as large as it does because ND knows the defer pool gets depleted – A LOT. Kids get in early to UVA, UMich, Gtown, BC and other schools. Kids get in where they applied ED2. After getting a defer disappointment, many move on and embrace other attractive opportunities.”
Ah, OK, this makes sense.
I don’t know why that made me feel a little better, but thank you. My daughter has stellar stats, excellent EC’s, athletics, and leadership, first in class at private catholic girls school, and we really thought she had a chance. From what we have observed, it appears that the few students in our area who were admitted are legacy - which she does not have. She has drafted a compelling LOCI and maintained all A’s with all honors and AP classes this semester. But I’m fairly certain that without any “hooks,” her admissions process is unfortunately over. We were barking up the wrong tree with this school.
The other side of the coin, though, is that ND clearly is not the only university opting for much larger than required number of deferrals, just a few of many examples in this respect:
Harvard, out of 5,919 early action applicants last year, 4,292 were deferred to the regular round. That’s almost 73% of early applicants. At MIT, 4,456 out of 6,519 early applicants were deferred. Georgetown does not deny any applicants from the early action pool - those who are not accepted are all being deferred to the regular admission round. Clearly these universities, like ND, do not have to worry that deferred students will not pursue their application if admitted during Regular decision.
As mentioned before, I do agree that stated ‘about 100 applicants’ or approx. 7.3% ultimate admission rate of REA deferred students seems to be at the low end. Having said this, Don Bishop normally always gets his numbers straight and he does provide a number of very strong arguments why Regular Decision is such an important component of the Notre Dame undergraduate admission mission in the quoted news article.
Possibly the news announcement following RD in March will provide a final number for REA deferred students admitted and/or waitlisted during Regular Decision - this would provide additional information for future applicants to make an educated decision on applying ND REA vs. RD at Notre Dame, I believe.