University of Virginia Deferred You: Now What?

Complete the deferral form in your student portal by Monday, December 15th morning. While UVA's official deadline for Early Decision deferrals is January 15th (and February 24th for Early Action), you should submit this form as soon as possible. This is the most critical step, if you don't fill out this form, UVA will not consider you during the Regular Decision round. Afterward, have your guidance counselor send your mid-year report with updated grades as soon as it's available. They should also email the admissions office at undergradadmission@virginia.edu to affirm that no matter what other admission decisions you receive, you will choose to attend UVA if offered a spot.

While UVA's deferral process emphasizes the form and updated grades over a traditional letter of continued interest, you still have the opportunity to make your case. If you choose to send additional information, this communication 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 UVA and translate that into giving the reader a concrete picture of exactly who you will be as a person on the Grounds. 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 how you can change the world for the better if you have the opportunity to leverage specific academic opportunities at UVA.

I personally recommend starting any additional communication with something lighthearted. It is naturally awkward reading something from someone whom you, in a sense, rejected. To make the experience as cringe-free as possible for the admissions officer, I wouldn't reference the deferral explicitly or convey any feelings of disappointment.

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 UVA 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.

Afterward, I would paint them a picture of you on the Grounds. 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 at UVA. Show them how your hobbies or talents will brighten up the days of your fellow Wahoos. Present yourself as someone they want on their campus.

To conclude, I would thank the reader for their time and add something to the effect of thanking them for the opportunity to share with them your favorite subjects and hobbies. Finally, I would tell them that no matter what other decisions you receive, you are absolutely resolute in attending UVA, and that if you are offered a seat, you will immediately accept it no matter what. I would then include a signed signature.

Submit any additional materials through your student portal. When it comes to bragging about grades, prizes, or publications, please save it. If you made it this far in the admissions process at a school like UVA, 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 admissions committee 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 office, 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 a top public university like UVA in 2025, this intangible quality they can infer is what will distinguish you from other overachievers.

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