I’ve mentioned before that for whatever reason our SCOIR database doesn’t include Yale.
But I popped open Harvard, and sure enough there was an REA deferred to waitlisted (outcome unknown).
The overall REA stats for Harvard were 14 total applications, 4 accepted, 6 deferred then denied, and then 4 unknown outcomes (one just deferred, two just waitlisted, and then finally the deferred-waitlisted).
I note the deferred to waitlisted kid had a solid test score (1560), but their GPA was just a slight notch lower than the lowest acceptance–that was a 1570 with a 4.076 (out of 4.33), and the 1560 had a 4.05. The other three accepted were 4.138/1590/36, 4.189/1570/35, and 4.204/1530. Any 4.2x is really, really good for us, although there was a 4.24/1590/36 who got deferred then denied . . . not sure what they did to deserve that! There was also a 4.102/35 deferred-denied.
Anyway, I am not loving all the deferred-denieds, but realistically four of the six were pretty far outside the GPA/test box that contained the admits. Inside that box, the results were solid–but it happened to be right away.
All this may seem of limited value, but it is interesting to me that I happen to know that people like the kid with the Morehead-Cain offer were actually inside the observable admit box for Harvard, and I would bet Yale if I had the data. He could still get denied, but I do wonder if he has an unusually strong chance as a deferred within that box. Indeed, I wonder if deferred-admits might be a little more common with Yale (which defers a lot less people than Harvard).
All of which is leading up to the rather unremarkable hypothesis that if you are coming from a HS like ours, maybe your odds of being deferred-admitted are better if you have really good numbers, and borderline numbers might get you waitlisted.