Hi, sorry for the late reply! congrats to your daughter on all the work she’s done so far!!! i wish her all the best and hope she has an amazing rest of senior year 
Waiting is truly terrible, but i think it became more manageable for me the more i distanced myself from my yale application and focused on things like enjoying my last classes, hanging out with friends, and planning what i wanted to do over the summer.
I guess with what i know now, i’d say i got deferred because there’s so many insanely talented people who apply early action, and the whole process isn’t so much random on the admissions office’s end as it is unpredictable and intensely competitive. Some of my friends here got in rea, and they did such cool things that they’re the people i used to read about and think “how do high schoolers like that exist?” I think i’ve comparatively met few people who were deferred. I was definitely just someone who worked hard on normal high schooler things like clubs and volunteering and liked a lot of things. In my admissions file, there was a note that I had “potential for a sum of the parts case,” which ultimately became a reason listed for my regular decision admission. And my year was the year they added 100 people to the class size! So probably some luck there as well.
1 Like
Thanks to everyone who offered advice and support along the way—I wanted to share our final update to close out this long journey.
My DD was deferred and ultimately rejected in the RD round. She was honored to be a finalist for the Morehead-Cain Scholarship, though she did not receive it. She was also a finalist for Boston College’s Gabelli Presidential Scholarship but was not selected in the end. Earlier, she had been admitted to UMich Ross in the EA round as OOS.
On Ivy Day, she was rejected by UPenn and Yale, waitlisted at Columbia, Brown, and Dartmouth—and then, to our surprise, accepted by Harvard and UC Berkeley Haas (GMP).
The process truly felt unpredictable from start to finish. But in the end, it only takes one right fit, and she’s excited to begin her next chapter.
Wishing the very best to everyone still on this journey!
8 Likes
Congratulations!!! After tears on deferral day, my daughter will be a Bulldog, woof! But there were other denials along the way (including Harvard). It really does only take one.
3 Likes
When I applied, Yale was at the bottom of my list. Had a horrible tour with a snooty tour guide. I only applied because of parental “suggestion”, so I wrote a real obnoxious essay. On Ivy Day (back then mail), I got the thin envelope from Harvard (and Princeton). Of course on the first day of school, the Dean of my residential college read some “example” essays at dinner to give everyone a sense of the class. Of course he read mine. The next 4 years were some of the best times in fun and personal development. There are still about a dozen of of us who vacation together each year.
Congrats to your daughter, and I hope Yale is as good to her as it was to me.
1 Like
Thank you so much for guiding us through this process and sharing your wisdom. I so glad to hear of your experience and I hope the next four years will be as wonderful for her. Boola, Boola!