Northwestern Deferred You: Now What?
Submit a letter of continued interest as soon as possible, and afterward, have your guidance counselor call or at least email the admissions office to update them concerning all of your awards, publications, accomplishments, and grades since you applied. They should affirm that no matter what other admission decisions you receive, you will choose to attend Northwestern if offered a spot. But not just any letter of continued interest. This letter should be one of the most inspired pieces of writing you've ever composed. In it, you need to let your heart write a love song for Northwestern and translate that into giving the reader a concrete picture of exactly who you will be as a person on their campus. This includes demonstrating how you will contribute to spaces and organizations on campus and reminding the reader of your academic hook. In reintroducing your hook, the academic niche you spent time and effort carving out in high school to distinguish yourself from others you want to remind the reader of the unique perspective only you can bring to Northwestern.
Ensure the letter is addressed to your regional admissions officer. You can find yours here. Submit your letter via your applicant portal and ensure your midyear transcript reaches the admissions office by mid-February, you can upload it through Slate.org, the Common Application, Coalition with Scoir.
When it comes to bragging about grades, prizes, or publications, please save it. If you made it this far in the admissions process at an elite school like Northwestern, then you already have enough academic credentials to be a strong candidate. If you did not, then you wouldn't be deferred and reevaluated in the regular decision round, you would have been rejected. Your guidance counselor should be the one bragging on your behalf. When they do it, it carries much more weight and shows the colleges that there is something beyond those accomplishments to consider. By your guidance counselor going out of their way to share your accomplishments with the admissions officer, it demonstrates to them that there is something compelling enough about your personhood for them to be doing this.
Given how accomplished you must be to be even deferred from Northwestern in 2025, where the Early Decision acceptance rate was approximately 20% from a record-breaking pool of over 6,000 applicants, this intangible quality they can infer is what will distinguish you from other overachievers. If you'd like help writing your letter of continued interest for Northwestern or any other school, please schedule a free consultation with us below.
After a lighthearted and positive introduction, I would then proceed to talk to the reader about something related to your niche, such as a new cutting-edge development or something new that you learned. I would then connect this new piece of information regarding your niche to something currently going on at Northwestern and explain how, by leveraging certain opportunities there, you can achieve some goal, and make the reader understand how achieving this goal can change the world.
Northwestern's Office of Undergraduate Research offers exceptional resources worth highlighting, the Undergraduate Research Grant (URG) program funds independent research and creative projects across all disciplines, while the Undergraduate Research Assistant Program (URAP) connects students with faculty mentors from day one. If you're pursuing engineering or applied sciences, the McCormick School of Engineering provides funded research opportunities through their Summer Research Award and access to interdisciplinary research networks that span materials science, nanotechnology, and beyond. For those interested in crossing traditional boundaries, Northwestern's 22 interdisciplinary research institutes and centers, from CIERA for astrophysics to the Kellogg School's policy initiatives, offer undergraduate involvement that's rare at peer institutions.
Afterward, I would paint them a picture of you on their campus. Have fun here. Feel free to write a hypothetical scenario of you making some of the best memories of your life there. You want the reader to feel like by not admitting you, they will be denying you the opportunity to live your best life for four years. Show them you doing activities that have garnered you friends in high school on their campus. Perhaps it's running through the Arch for the first time, participating in Dillo Day, or presenting your research at the Chicago Area Undergraduate Research Symposium alongside fellow undergraduates who share your intellectual passions.
Northwestern has stated that while they "neither require nor expect deferred candidates to submit additional information or letters of support," they do allow students who wish to send updates to submit them via their applicant portal. They anticipate "admitting a small number of deferred candidates through our Regular Decision round." Based on industry estimates, roughly 10% of deferred applicants ultimately receive admission, those aren't bad odds when you consider you've already cleared the initial bar.
Make sure your midyear transcript arrives no later than mid-February. If you have meaningful updates, a significant academic honor, a new leadership role, advancement in research, or a major accomplishment, include them concisely in your letter. Don't list everything; pick the updates with the most impact and frame them as proof you're continuing to grow.
Remember: a deferral means Northwestern didn't close the door on you. They want to see you in the context of the full applicant pool. Your job now is to make the case that you belong among the Wildcats. Stay positive, stay genuine, and let your authentic enthusiasm for Northwestern shine through every word.
If you'd like help writing your letter of continued interest for Swarthmore or any other school, please schedule a free consultation with us below.
