While a deferral or rejection are likely not the decisions you were hoping for when you submitted an Early Decision I application to College of William & Mary, now is not the time to give up hope! We know decisions were released for the Class of 2030 on December 9th for those who applied ED I, which means you’ve had a bit of time to reconcile with the results, and now you’re eager to move forward, right? 

After a deferral, you’ll need to focus equally on your Letter of Continued Interest as well as your Regular Decision applications, whereas, if you heard back that very worst news, you’ll want to shore up the rest of your applications before submitting to ensure that doesn’t happen again.

College of William & Mary Early Decision Admissions Statistics Over 20+ Years

Below is a breakdown of College of William & Mary’s Early Decision and Regular Decision admissions statistics over the last almost 30 years utilizing their Common Data Sets. 

Early Decision and Regular Decision Acceptance Rates (Classes of 2030 – 2001)

Admissions Cycle	William & Mary Class Year	Early Decision I and II Admission Rate	Regular Decision Admission Rate
2025-2026	Class of 2030	Not Yet Published	Not Yet Published
2024-2025	Class of 2029	49.22%	36.96%
2023-2024	Class of 2028	47.03%	32.72%
2022-2023	Class of 2027	45.48%	33.50%
2021-2022	Class of 2026	49.72%	37.00%
2020-2021	Class of 2025	49.07%	42.16%
2019-2020	Class of 2024	50.80%	37.68%
2018-2019	Class of 2023	49.22%	36.92%
2017-2018	Class of 2022	58.24%	35.92%
2016-2017	Class of 2021	51.91%	36.52%
2015-2016	Class of 2020	51.74%	34.46%
2014-2015	Class of 2019	50.47%	33.02%
2013-2014	Class of 2018	49.92%	33.21%
2012-2013	Class of 2017	47.18%	32.17%
2011-2012	Class of 2016	48.33%	34.57%
2010-2011	Class of 2015	49.72%	31.73%
2009-2010	Class of 2014	49.49%	33.51%
2008-2009	Class of 2013	53.42%	34.08%
2007-2008	Class of 2012	53.89%	33.68%
2006-2007	Class of 2011	45.55%	32.34%
2005-2006	Class of 2010	45.41%	31.03%
2004-2005	Class of 2009	50.16%	35.04%
2003-2004	Class of 2008	51.07%	34.33%
2002-2003	Class of 2007	47.71%	34.64%
2001-2002	Class of 2006	54.33%	37.42%
2000-2001	Class of 2005	53.60%	40.62%
1999-2000	Class of 2004	62.50%	44.93%
1998-1999	Class of 2003	57.29%	45.15%
1997-1998	Class of 2002	60.38%	45.15%
1996-1997	Class of 2001	67.85%	46.02%

College of William & Mary Deferral Rate

College of William & Mary, like many highly selective universities, does not publish its Early Decision deferral rates. On their website, the schools says this about deferral: “Applicants who are not accepted during Early Decision I or Early Decision II may be deferred to the Regular Decision process where the admission committee reviews their application again, this time in the broader context of the entire applicant pool. College of William & Mary will deny admission to students during Early Decision I and II if the committee feels that they are not competitive at that point in time and will not be competitive in the context of the entire applicant pool.  A denial during Early Decision I and II is a final admission decision.”

5 Steps to Take After Being Deferred by College of College of William & Mary

1. Go for a run, a hike, or a walk in nature — anything to clear your head for a few hours. We promise, it will help if you process your deferral for a beat before trying to turn your deferral into an offer of admission.
2. Set up a complimentary consultation with Ivy Coach to learn the best path forward as a deferred College of William & Mary candidate.
3. Complete a PostMortem application review with Ivy Coach. You need to find out what went wrong, what went right, and what needs to change for your Regular Decision schools so you don’t repeat mistakes that were made on your College of William & Mary application when applying to your Regular Decision schools. You can’t change your College of William & Mary application. But you can change all the applications you haven’t yet submitted.
4. Send a compelling Letter of Continued Interestto the College of William & Mary with Ivy Coach’s assistance. After the PostMortem, we’ll help you craft a wow letter to distinguish you among the deferred pool of candidates. In their letters, most students brag and update College of William & Mary on all that they’ve achieved in the weeks since they applied. That’s a huge mistake, one that we looooove when other students make. When those students zig, Ivy Coach students zag. Our students’ letters are love letters to William & Mary, and it’s a big reason why they’re so often successful.
5. After you’ve submitted your Letter of Continued Interest as promptly as possible after your deferral (which you should already have heard about if you applied ED I), bring that letter to your school counselor. Ask your school counselor to make an advocacy call to William & Mary’s admissions office on your behalf. While some school counselors won’t make advocacy calls, good school counselors will always pick up the phone and go to bat for you.

What Not To Do If You’ve Been Deferred by College of William & Mary

1. Don’t send a knee-jerk response to William & Mary’s admissions office immediately after your deferral. You should only be sending one powerful Letter of Continued Interest. They don’t want to hear anything else from you. That will only make your uphill battle even steeper. 
2. Don’t call the William & Mary admissions office to find out why you were deferred. You’ll never learn the real reason(s) anyway and if you bother them enough, they’ll just make everyone’s life easier and reject you outright. 
3. Don’t stop by the William & Mary admissions office. They don’t want to meet with deferred candidates.
4. Don’t update William & Mary on your offers of admission as they come in. They simply don’t care. Such a move will only make you seem unlikable.
5. Don’t give up hope on William & Mary. You applied Early! You clearly loved the school at one point, and we want to capitalize on that in your Letter of Continued Interest. As the saying goes, “Good things take time.”

What to Do After Being Rejected By College of William & Mary

Did you receive a rejection from William & Mary? We completely understand that’s not what you were expecting or planning for. If that throws a huge wrench into your college search process, think of Ivy Coach as playing Operation and removing that wrench out of the way for you to move forward and succeed. William & Mary doesn’t publish any statistics on the specific proportion of deferred versus rejected students, which doesn’t help to shed any light on this challenging situation. But is this the end of your admissions rope? We certainly don’t think so.

At Ivy Coach, we firmly believe your admissions destiny is still within your control. By signing up for Ivy Coach’s PostMortem, you’ll come away with a competitive strategy, meticulously designed just for you by our team of former elite college admissions officers. This unique approach has led to success for numerous students who have turned to us after being rejected.

You might even secure an acceptance from a college that’s an even better fit for you than William & Mary. Sounds impossible, you say? Psh! We’ll develop a concrete plan for making the most of your future school. This strategy, tailored to your strengths and interests, could be your key to securing an elite college acceptance. And if you act swiftly, within hours or days of your deferral, you could be the next to secure an elite college acceptance.

Next Steps After a William & Mary Rejection

PostMortem Application Review

After hearing back about a rejection from William & Mary, we don’t recommend delaying before reaching out to Ivy Coach for a PostMortem application review. But before that, you can pause to take a deep breath. Everything is going to work out. Once you’re re-centered, it’s time to dive in with renewed vigor and understand that you’ve been given a blessing in disguise. You have the opportunity to rework your application strategy before you send it off to other schools, and you’re going to want to take that chance for change. 

During Ivy Coach’s PostMortem, we:

• Rework your current applications that are still unsubmitted. We’ll review every part of both the essay and no-essay portions of each application and readjust as we go. The schools you’re prioritizing will likely change now that you’ve been rejected from your top choice, and you may think these applications are pretty much done, but we beg to differ. Actually, we don’t have to beg. We’ve been in this business for so long, we can guarantee you that after receiving a rejection from College of William & Mary, you need to course correct before it’s too late. There are no more application cycles after Regular Decision.
• Work to present you as a uniquely talented individual rather than a well-rounded one. Well-rounded candidates face nothing but strife in the admissions process. It’s likely that if you confused admissions officers with too many disparate activities, they couldn’t determine what your singular narrative was and they didn’t understand what you could bring to their school. That’s why you need to instead develop a singular hook.
• Correct the small mistakes that may have contributed to your rejection decision. Sometimes, a rejection can be because of a completely insignificant-seeming reason. When colleges have such a surplus of applicants to choose from, though, they’re allowed to be pretty picky. For example, students who brag do themselves no favor in the College of William & Mary admissions process. Hot tip: no one likes a braggart. Writing about how you raised $35,000 dollars for a charity or were selected out of a huge pool of applicants for a seemingly prestigious but actually totally unimpressive summer enrichment program at a highly selective university definitely counts as bragging!
• Reevaluate your admissions prospects with realistic eyes. Now is the time to consider taking advantage of the Early Decision II round for a school that hits your sweet spot between prestigious and realistic (and no, you can’t reapply to William & Mary in their ED II round). Not all students are right for ED II, and not all schools offer an ED II round. Each student will find a different admissions path that’s right for them, but you can’t waste any more time in asserting this path.

Application Assistance

Following the PostMortem, which is your key first step to understand what went wrong and how you need to reposition your narrative, we will:

• Renew all of your applications with Ivy Coach’s assistance. Now that you understand what went wrong and what you need to rework in your applications, it’s time to put that into practice. Although we can’t correct every mistake you’ve made throughout high school, there’s a lot we can still fix in terms of your application narrative and how you hope to get admissions officers to root for you.

What Not to Do After Being Rejected by the College of William & Mary

Below are five pretty surefire ways to ensure your Regular Decision admission round goes poorly after you receive a William & Mary rejection:

1. Do not submit your remaining applications as is. A rejection is valuable data on your admissions journey, indicating that something is wrong with what you’ve presented to the admissions office. This is your only chance to pivot to a more effective strategy, and you’re going to want to take it.
2. Do not, under any circumstances, reach out to the William & Mary admissions office asking why you were rejected. They don’t want to hear from you. All your eagerness will do is serve to prove their point, that they were right not to let you in. You have more important things to be focusing on! Don’t get hung up on something that’s a waste of your time (and theirs).
3. Do not be choosy with your selection of Regular Decision schools and/or omit safety schools from your Regular Decision list. There are certain qualifications that make something a safety school, and if you’re not sure how to determine this, our team of former elite college admissions officers can help. Considering not applying somewhere because you’d prefer not to go to school on the West Coast? Think again. We do not tolerate such pickiness at this time of year from rejected applicants. Open your mind and you’ll be surprised. Oh so often, students who come to us after a rejection end up attending a school that Ivy Coach adds to their list at this time of year.
4. Do not blame your school counselor for an admissions decision that ultimately rests on your shoulders. We have to tell it like it is, and even though high school counselors aren’t always perfect at their jobs (i.e., they sometimes will refuse to make advocacy calls on behalf of their students), they are still your #1 ally in the fight for your college future. Alienating them is the worst thing you can do right now. Don’t even think about it!

College of William & Mary Deferral and Rejection FAQ

Will William & Mary ask me to do anything after my deferral?

Yes! They will ask for your midyear grades, as well as a Letter of Continued Interest. Their website notes, “This statement does not have to be overly elaborate, just simply explain why you feel like William & Mary is the best fit for you.”

When will I hear from William & Mary with their final decision on my deferred application?

You’ll learn your final decision by April 1st (and no, that is not some sort of sick joke, unfortunately). 

After a rejection from College of William & Mary, should I submit my Regular Decision applications right away?

Absolutely not! You need to use that rejection as a data point as well as an opportunity for growth. Clearly, something didn’t work the first time around. Don’t rush to get your applications submitted, thinking the same strategy that failed you at William & Mary is going to work anywhere else. You need to pause, take stock, make adjustments, and then move forward with your application process. 

Can I appeal a rejection from William & Mary?

No. The word from the College of William & Mary admissions office should be taken as final. If you received a rejection, as of right now, unfortunately, you will not be attending William & Mary next year as a member of the Class of 2030. That doesn’t mean you can’t apply as a transfer candidate, but for now, it’s time to look elsewhere.

The Post-Deferral and Rejection College of William & Mary Game Plan with Ivy Coach

If you’re interested in optimizing your admission to William & Mary after a deferral or a rejection, fill out Ivy Coach’s complimentary consultation form. We’ll then be in touch to outline our PostMortem and Letter of Continued Interest service for deferred candidates, or our PostMortem for rejected applicants.