@2020senior751 deferment doesn’t mean automatic rejection in RD, of course, but some schools do defer all kids who they don’t accept. I don’t know what Wake’s policy is. I have a friend whose daughter was deferred from Michigan and Yale. They defer all or almost all students they don’t take and this student was NO way going to get into either of those schools with her 25 ACT and below average GPA. Bottom line is that deferment could mean they honestly just want to compare you to the RD kids. It could also just be that a school’s policy is to defer all who they don’t accept.