Were you deferred or rejected by the University of Colorado this Early Action cycle for the Class of 2030? If so, turn that frown upside down. It’s not over ’til it’s over, and it’s not over yet. For deferred students, you’re still in the running to be a student at CU Boulder next fall. 

For denied students, find out what your next step in the college admissions process is that will have you getting accepted left, right, and center to schools you may even like better than CU Boulder!

University of Colorado Early Action Acceptance and Deferral Statistics

Unfortunately, because CU Boulder offers Early Action (the non-binding option) rather than Early Decision (the binding application option), they do not publicize the data associated with their Early round acceptance, deferral, or rejection rates. However, we can hazard a guess that as with almost every other school that offers an EA option, the acceptance rate is higher in this admissions round because students have indicated that CU Boulder would be a top choice for them, were they admitted.

The big reason Early Action and Early Decision rates are historically higher than Regular Decision rounds is because colleges want to protect their yield as much as possible. The yield is the percentage of students who are offered admission and enroll. For example, for the Class of 2028 at CU Boulder, their yield was quite low: only 14.15%. This means they’d likely want to admit more students Early to increase the likelihood of boosting that yield. 

5 Steps to Take After Being Deferred by University of Colorado

1. Go for a run. Do yoga. Hit the mountain and take a hike. Whatever you need to do to clear your head, do it! You’ll tackle your deferral, but you first need a moment to yourself to process everything.
2. Sign up for a complimentary consultation with Ivy Coach to learn about our go-forward service for deferred candidates.
3. Suffer through a PostMortem application review with Ivy Coach. It’s going to hurt to hear what mistakes were made, but it’s crucial that you fix these mistakes before you submit your Regular Decision applications. While some mistakes will indeed be too late to fix, many will still be correctable over the last two weeks of December.
4. Submit a compelling Letter of Continued Interest to University of Colorado with Ivy Coach’s assistance. It’s not just about submitting a letter. It’s about submitting a wow letter. We’re going to help you present yourself to CU Boulder’s admissions committee in the most effective way possible.
5. In the New Year, bring your Letter of Continued Interest to your school counselor and ask them to make an advocacy call on your behalf. Some school counselors won’t make such calls, but good school counselors will pick up the phone and fight for you.

What Not To Do If You’ve Been Deferred by University of Colorado

1. Do not call or email the University of Colorado admissions office to find out why you were deferred. No matter what rationale they give you, the chances it’s the real reason are slim to none anyway.
2. Do not send a short note to the University of Colorado reiterating your interest, thinking you’ll send your more formal Letter of Continued Interest later. You get one chance to make your case in your letter. Don’t drown out its power.
3. Avoid driving to the University of Colorado and throwing eggs at the admissions office. That should go without saying, but hey, you never know! And speaking of eggs, don’t bake them a cake either. They might be gluten free. But, seriously, no cakes! Oh, and no videos — oy vey!
4. Do not burn precious days after your deferral before sending in a Letter of Continued Interest. Such a move implies you may have developed a case of sour grapes. Did your school counselor say to send it out in January? That’s nice. Let’s hope they gave that advice to your competitors from your high school. Don’t correct your school counselors since they can be your greatest advocate, but send it out in December!
5. Refrain from reaching out repeatedly to University of Colorado’s admissions office after submitting your Letter of Continued Interest. Less is more. Such an approach will only render you less likable to the admissions committee and drown out the power of Ivy Coach’s effective approach.

What to Do After a Rejection from CU Boulder

So you’ve been rejected. Is it the end of the line for your college admissions dreams? We certainly don’t think so. Your admissions journey is just getting started, so take a deep breath and start thinking strategically. Don’t doomscroll. Don’t freeze in the headlights. Instead, take action!

To really understand where you went wrong, you’ll need to examine your application with as objective an eye as possible. This process may seem daunting, but you’re not alone. Ivy Coach’s team, composed of former elite college admissions officers, can assist you with this very task. Our PostMortem review will identify what went wrong and provide you with a strategic plan to impress the admissions officers at your Regular Decision schools.

Let’s turn what feels like a step back into a two steps forward towards your exciting future! We’ve already done it with countless students before, and if you act quickly, you could soon wind up with Regular Decision acceptances to schools just as worthy of your attention as University of Colorado (or maybe even worthier, dare we say it)!

PostMortem Application Review

After receiving a rejection from the University of Colorado, it’s smart to act quickly and contact Ivy Coach for a PostMortem application review. Yes, you can take a pause and count to thirty to calm down. Heck, even count to sixty. But we don’t want you to waste too much more time than that. Time is of the essence now, so we encourage you to spring into action once you’re feeling ready and recharged to do so. 

During Ivy Coach’s PostMortem, we:

• Evaluate your current applications that you’re still working on. We’ll go through each and every section of the application, including the essays and non-essay portions, in order to decide which schools you should be prioritizing now that you’ve been rejected from your first choice. If you think that these applications are close to done, we’ve got some news for you. You’ve already been rejected once. It doesn’t make sense to make those same mistakes again, does it? Not to us, it doesn’t. 
• Craft a narrative that presents you as a uniquely talented individual rather than as a well-rounded one. You may have learned the hard way that coming off as someone who excels in various domains only makes you seem like a jack of all trades and thus a master of none. Colleges do not want masters of none, especially the elite schools. They want masters of one. So, you’ll need to pivot to a strategy that actually works, a.k.a. Ivy Coach’s singular hook.
• Correct little-known missteps and mistakes that stand out to an admissions officer. Rejection can come down to something as simple as a thought or idea that was miscommunicated and didn’t vibe well with that college’s culture. For example, students who brag make themselves unlikable to admissions officers (and, sorry-not-sorry, writing about how you fundraised $15,000 for a charity or were chosen out of a pool of thousands for a seemingly prestigious but actually totally blasé summer enrichment program at a highly selective university counts as bragging!).
• Take stock of your admissions prospects through a realistic lens. Consider applying in the Early Decision II round for a school that will hit the sweet spot between prestige and admissions feasibility. Of course, not all students are right for ED II, and not all schools provide an ED II round. There’s no time to waste in figuring out the admissions pathway that works for you.

Application Assistance

Following the PostMortem, a crucial first step for us to understand what went wrong and how we need to reposition your application narrative, we:

• Overhaul your applications with Ivy Coach’s assistance. During that Postmortem, we made our list, and checked it twice, so now you need to put everything on that list into practice in your application. We can’t fix every mistake you’ve made throughout high school, that’s true, but there’s a whole lot we can still correct at this late date in terms of how you tell your story and get admissions officers to root for you.

What Not to Do After Being Rejected by CU Boulder

Below are five bonafide ways to torpedo your Regular Decision admissions chances after receiving a University of Colorado rejection:

1. Do not submit your remaining applications as is to other schools. Clearly, something isn’t right with your narrative, and it ultimately resulted in initial rejection. If you’ve got an injury on the field, do you keep running on that hurt ankle even when you know something’s wrong? No! So don’t do that in college admissions either! This is your only chance to pivot to a more effective strategy, because, after all, there is no second chance after Regular Decision deadlines.
2. Do not reach out to the University of Colorado admissions office with useless questions about why you were rejected. It’s a waste of time, both yours and theirs; they won’t give you whatever answer you’re looking for. After your PostMortem, you’ll know why you were rejected, and you’ll be able to avoid that with your Regular Decision applications.
3. Do not be too picky with your choice of Regular Decision schools and/or leave off safety schools from your Regular Decision list. At this point, you can’t afford to do that. If you’re unsure of what counts as a safety school, our team of former elite college admissions officers can help. We cannot tolerate pickiness at this time of year from rejected applicants. It won’t serve you as an applicant.
4. Do not blame your school counselor for an admissions decision that is ultimately your responsibility. Although high school counselors are not always perfect at their jobs (for example, they sometimes refuse to make advocacy calls on behalf of their students), they are still your #1 ally right now. So don’t even think about alienating them!

University of Colorado Deferral and Rejection FAQ

Should I submit lots of extra material to CU Boulder? Should I send them a letter once a week, once a month?

No, you should submit a single letter. Your goal should not be to pepper University of Colorado with letters every week or every month. Such a tactic will only annoy their admissions committee and inspire them to root against you. Besides, it will drown out the power of your Letter of Continued Interest.

Why should I spend more time on the University of Colorado? Shouldn’t I move on?

While you should, of course, be simultaneously focused on your other Regular Decision schools, you should not throw in the towel on your case for admission to University of Colorado after a deferral. As a deferred candidate, you’ve still got a genuine shot, and University of Colorado is the school to which you earmarked your Early Decision card. Don’t give up hope!

Can I reapply to University of Colorado in the Regular Decision round if I was rejected Early?

Nope! If you were rejected from CU Boulder, that decision is final. You cannot send in another application to the school in the next admissions cycle. You’re welcome to reapply as a transfer student next year, but as of this year, you will not be attending University of Colorado in the Class of 2030.

Do I still have options after receiving a University of Colorado rejection? 

Yes, of course! There are lots of other college fishes in the admissions sea. Just like with deferrals, there is still hope in the college admissions process. It might be somewhere new that you may not even know about yet! During Ivy Coach’s PostMortem, we’ll rework your Regular Decision school list and present you with new options you may be even more excited about.

Moving Forward Post-University of Colorado Deferral or Rejection with Ivy Coach

If you’ve been deferred or rejected, put your best foot forward with Ivy Coach’s assistance. We help countless students who come to us after an Early stage rejection find schools that they fall in love with (and get accepted to!). 

If you’re interested in optimizing your case for admission to University of Colorado’s Class of 2030 or to other elite universities in the Regular Decision round, fill out Ivy Coach’s complimentary consultation form, click that you’ve been deferred or rejected, as the case may be, and we’ll be in touch to outline our go-forward process.