THE BRIDGE TO COLLEGE
What To Do If You’re Deferred
In the admissions season, December is perhaps the cruelest month. A few weeks ago, applicants learned their fates … and the vast majority did not achieve their “early” schools. Despite the siren cry that “early will give you and advantage,” that’s not usually true. Instead, colleges make decisions for their own benefit, and just before the winter holiday, students and families feel stabbed when they are not admitted.
For years, some colleges used deferrals as soft rejections; it’s “bad for business” (fewer applications will happen) if the majority of candidates get rejected in December. However, starting last year, a new trend emerged: more colleges started deferring more students out of the early pool and into the regular pool. Why? It has to do with college rankings: by increasing the size of the regular pool, the selectivity percentage gets smaller, creating the illusion of better quality for the college.
If you’ve received a deferral, I’m sure it feels like a rejection. It’s not.
First, understand that the college still has you in the “potential admit” pile. While you feel defeated, they still have you under consideration.
Second, understand that college admissions offices want to understand if you still want to attend their schools. If you applied for binding early decision, now you are no longer bound to the college. Have your desires changed?
It is common for students to update their applications after being deferred. If the college gave a deadline for this, respect the deadline. If there is no stated deadline, consider reaching out to the college prior to the end of January.
What colleges expect to receive is something commonly called LOCI – a letter of continued interest. This is not a new essay nor pleading nor begging. Instead, this is an opportunity to let them know two things: are you still interested in the college, and what has happened since you filed your application?
When it comes to indicating your interest, unless the school is absolutely your first choice for college, don’t say it remains your first choice. To admissions readers, those claims can lack credibility. Instead, let them know that the college remains a first choice. It’s more honest, better mojo, and also makes the school wonder if there’s competition for you. That could make you seem more desirable to them.
In terms of updating your application, let them know about both your grades and your extracurricular activities. Indicate whether your grades have continued strong or even improved, and if you won any academic awards, update them on that. You can also give them information about research or projects you may be doing.
For extracurriculars, has there been any new developments, any awards, any new competition results, any progress whatsoever? Have you started any new clubs or other activities? If so, give them some specificity about what has happened.
Remember, admissions professionals are very busy at this time of year, so respect their time. Do not write long LOCI’s. Do not call them. No flowers, chocolates or presents! And don’t think your parent can suddenly donate to the school; alumni donations are usually not allowed during the year a legacy student is applying.
But … is one LOCI all that you can do?
This is a great time to remember that your high school is also invested in your results. Ask your college counselor if they have any suggestions for you. Perhaps they will volunteer to reach out to the college if they believe that would be helpful and appropriate. But don’t push them … trust their judgment and skills.
If you had an interview, perhaps with a school’s alum, reach out to your interviewer and ask for their assistance. Just as you updated the admissions office, update the interviewer, and ask if there’s anything else that can and should be done. If they like you, they may choose to help you.
One more thing: while discretion is important, remember that there are no hard rules in updating a college. Work with your counselor and your family to come up with the best possible strategy.
Finally, for those who recently filed an application for regular consideration: you too can update your favorite colleges.Robert LeVine is the founder and CEO of University Consultants of America, an independent educational consultancy assisting students around the world with applications to colleges, universities and graduate schools. For more information, call University Consultants of America, Inc. at 1-800-465-5890 or visit www.universitycoa.com
FAMILY MATTERS
Communities and Milestones
By Anu Verma Panchal
A few months ago, I had the good fortune to stand by my parents’ side as they celebrated a significant milestone, their golden anniversary. One of my favorite parts of the event was that in addition to uncles, aunts and cousins, we had with us their closest friends, the extended “framily” that had helped my parents recreate a sense of home and family when they were thousands of miles away from the place of their birth.
Circa 1980, with a toddler and 6-year-old in tow, my parents moved to a little town in Zambia called Kabwe. They knew no one and nothing about this new country beyond my dad’s offer letter and one phone call with a relative who had once lived in Africa.
But on their very first evening, there was a knock at the door. It was a young Malayalee couple with two little boys our age. Hearing that a new family from Kerala had arrived, they had stopped by to welcome us. From that one introduction, my parents were immediately absorbed into a group of friends.
The same thing happened every time we moved towns. The news of our impending arrival reached before we did, and we were pulled into existing Malayalee social circles. Our weekends were spent at each other’s houses, uncles in safari suits swilling whiskey, aunties in sarees holding deafening conversations while we ran around and played. As the years passed, my parents grew into the veterans who welcomed new families and organized the elaborate cultural events that gave the community a sense of home away from home.
And all around town – and across the South Asian diaspora – others were doing the same thing. In Tamil, in Bangla, in Hindi, they created communities that served a familial function for each other. Community building seems to be in our genes. Or, as a friend once told me, “We’re like goats ... we can only travel in packs.”
During the college years and in my early 20s, plugging into the local desi community was nowhere close to being a priority; in fact, I reveled in the freedom from it. It was irritating, even, to see the insularity that I imagined permeated those associations. Why move to another country and only hang out with the same people? Why not at least try to assimilate?
It was only when I became a parent that I found myself searching, maybe even yearning, for some small level of connection. I wanted my daughters to learn Bharatanatyam like I had, wanted them to celebrate Hindu holidays and go to the temple occasionally. Does that mean that I want my communities to be restricted by ethnicity, language or religion? Certainly not. I am blessed with close “framily” from many backgrounds, and I enjoy Gasparilla as much as I do Onam and Navaratri.
Yet I am grateful for the generations who came before we did and established everything from the Tampa India Festival to the India Cultural Center so that we now have the option to dip a toe, an ankle or our whole selves in cultural life if we so desired.
A week before my older daughter was due to leave for college, I took her on one of our habitual visits to the Hindu temple here in Tampa. By a happy coincidence, the pujari on duty that day was the same one who had presided on the day that we had taken her on her first temple visit when she was a 6-month-old baby. “You’re the one who carried her to the front of the room when she was born, and now she’s starting college,” I told him. He beamed. “Look at that!” he marveled.
Look at that indeed. That kind of continuity doesn’t just happen. It’s the result of hard work from a lot of people who came before us, many of whom we’ll never even know. The roots they put down gave us the luxury to pick and choose how much we want to hold on to, because some variation of it has been preserved here for us.