An unfortunate reality of the college admissions process can be deferrals, or worse, rejections. These results can happen even when students feel like they had the strongest application with the best grades and test scores possible. It’s just not always enough in this competitive application process. 

Just like the other Regular Decision Applicants, students who were deferred from  University of Rochester’s Class of 2030 will now hear back about their application by April 1st. 

We realize that can feel like a really long time to wait, especially for students who applied early, hoping to just enjoy the rest of their senior year. But in between deferral and Regular Decision applications, there is plenty students can be doing to put themselves in a good spot for the rest of the college admissions process. 

What Percentage of Early Decision I and Early Decision II Applicants Does University of Rochester Typically Defer?

University of Rochester offers both Early Decision I and Early Decision II, and of course, Regular Decision. They do not offer Early Action, so students should only apply to the University of Rochester Early if they are certain they’d want to commit if accepted. The school does not publicize any confirmed statistics about how many students they defer each year. 

University of Rochester Acceptance Rate

The University of Rochester acceptance rate for the Class of 2028 was 40% out of over 20,000 applicants. They have not yet released their acceptance rate statistics for the Class of 2029. 

Admissions Cycle	University of Rochester Class Year	Early Decision I and II Admission Rate	Regular Decision Admission Rate
2025-2026	Class of 2030	Not Reported	Not Reported
2024-2025	Class of 2029	Not Reported	Not Reported
2023-2024	Class of 2028	38.1%	40.0%
2022-2023	Class of 2027	Not Reported	Not Reported
2021-2022	Class of 2026	Not Reported	Not Reported
2020-2021	Class of 2025	45.0%	40.5%
2019-2020	Class of 2024	Not Reported	Not Reported
2018-2019	Class of 2023	Not Reported	Not Reported
2017-2018	Class of 2022	Not Reported	29.5%
2016-2017	Class of 2021	Not Reported	Not Reported
2015-2016	Class of 2020	Not Reported	Not Reported
2014-2015	Class of 2019	Not Reported	Not Reported
2013-2014	Class of 2018	Not Reported	Not Reported

What Percentage of Early Decision I and Early Decision II Applicants Does University of Rochester Typically Accept?

Across both their Early Decision I and Early Decision II applicants, University of Rochester had an overall Early acceptance rate of 38.1%. Out of the 1,385 students who applied Early for a spot in the Class of 2028, 527 of them were offered a spot. 

What Should Applicants Do After Being Deferred by University of Rochester

PostMortem Application Review

After being deferred from University of Rochester, the best next step forward is to set up Ivy Coach’s PostMortem application review. 

During the PostMortem session, Ivy Coach’s counselor, a former elite college admissions officer, will:

• Give in-depth feedback on up to three college applications. Our counselor will review both essay and non-essay portions of each application.
• Brainstorm a strong extracurricular hook to place a student in the most advantageous spot possible. That hook needs to thread through the rest of their application and differentiate them all of the other students applying who will come off as well-rounded, because they took bad admissions advice. 
• Fix application mistakes. We hate to be the bearers of bad news, but there are always mistakes, even in applications that have already been submitted and can no longer be changed. In fact, most contain a variety of different errors. Even something seemingly insignificant can have an adverse effect on the admissions process.
• Craft a stronger Regular Decision school list. We’re experts at spotting missing schools from a student’s list, so we add them for the Regular Decision round. Frequently, students actually end up attending a school that we recommended to them!

Common Mistakes Caught During Ivy Coach’s PostMortem

There are a lot of common mistakes we see frequently in the admissions process. The ones we’ve included below aren’t all of them, just some of the most common errors we see. Be sure to double check that your child’s application doesn’t include any of the following. 

• A Personal Statement about sports, music, community service, grandparents, or travel. These topics are all so overdone, admissions officers are almost immediately yawning when an essay starts with a sports injury or a trip to Europe. 
• A Why College essay that was obviously an identical copy of an essay for a different school. Even if they played Mad Libs with the names of classes and professors, admissions officers can tell. And they really don’t like it!
• Your child mentioned the dollar amount that they fundraised for a charitable cause. Dollar signs make the student instantly come across as unlikable to admissions officers.
• Your child crammed every single activity, honor, and community service hour they ever did into one essay. That feels like bragging, don’t you agree? Plus, it looks like a student is trying to impress admissions officers. Ivy Coach’s students don’t need to try to impress admissions officers. They just do.
• Their whole application is too well-rounded. That hasn’t worked in many, many, MANY years. We’re living in modern times, and that means an application needs to be unique to stand out. Just think about how many pages of essays that admissions officers are reading. Would you want to read the same thing over and over again?
• They sent an application to a school that they weren’t competitive enough for. We tell it like it is at Ivy Coach, and that means if a student’s Early choice wasn’t the right one, we’ll be honest with them.

Write a Letter of Continued Interest

A student’s Letter of Continued Interest needs to be a love letter to the university. You heard us right, a love letter. We’re not talking Romeo standing outside Juliet’s balcony like a stalker, but rather, showing genuine interest in and passion for the school. This letter must prove to admissions officers that your child really wants a spot there, and moreso, that they’d be an asset to the campus community during their time there.

The Letter of Continued Interest is your child’s chance to go into detail about how they’ll contribute to the school through the power of their unique background and perspective. How will your child make a difference in the school’s classes, culture, and community?

That letter has to catch the attention of admissions officers as quickly as possible, and every sentence should pack a punch. Your child’s hook should be clearly tied to specific aspects about the school’s environment and offerings throughout the letter.

What a Letter of Continued Interest Should Not Do

Just as well as there are Letter of Continued Interest dos, there are also Letter of Continued Interest don’ts. A big don’t is listing any academic updates. That’s boring, and it comes across as bragging. We all know no one likes a braggart.

A Letter of Continued Interest also definitely shouldn’t start with your child’s name. Believe it or not, admissions officers don’t need that information. It takes up precious space out of the roughly 650 words they have in that letter. That space should instead be used to illustrate a clear picture of your child’s singular unique hook, showcasing how they’ll contribute their hook to the specific aspects of the school (think about the programs, institutes, culture, traditions, and activities if your child is stumped on what to talk about).

This might be different from other advice you’ve received (and by might, we mean likely is). In that case, we’re sorry you got some faulty information. Hopefully, there’s still time to correct those mistakes before submitting!

When Applicants Should Submit Their Letters of Continued Interest

We always recommend students submit their Letter of Continued Interest as soon as possible. That’s ideally within a few days of receiving a deferral. For example, if a student learns they are deferred on December 15th, we like students to send in their Letters of Continued Interest before December 20th.

The one time we would never advise students to send their letter is within the day or two leading up to Christmas or between Christmas and New Year’s. In that case, students should wait to send their letter in until a few days into the New Year. 

Please note that we said waiting to send, not waiting to write. That letter will contain the blueprint to how we’d encourage a student to reposition their Regular Decision applications, many of which will be due January 1st. They should draft that letter as soon as possible and then use it as a guide moving forward in all the rest of their applications.

Chances of Getting into University of Rochester After Being Deferred

Similar to many schools, University of Rochester does not release the acceptance stats for students who are admitted after being deferred. However, a fairly universal average statistic we use as a reference point at Ivy Coach is that about 10% of deferred candidates ultimately earn admission to the school that deferred them. Although the percentage can vary from year to year and from school to school, it’s a fairly consistent threshold.  

That rate jumps up to about 40% on average for students who come to Ivy Coach after being deferred. Impressive, right? We work closely with a student to create a compelling Letter of Interest and quadruple their chances of admission after a deferral, as well as improve their odds for the Regular Decision process.

A Deferred Student’s Chances Improve Dramatically with Ivy Coach

For those students who come to work with Ivy Coach immediately after being deferred, if they play their cards right, they still have a genuine chance at admission. 

But we’re very realistic at Ivy Coach. We’re all about honesty. We tell it like it is. Because of this, we can only take on students after a deferral if they fully understand that their chances simply aren’t as strong as when they first applied. All we can do is give them the best possible chance to gain admissions. And if a 40% greater chance post-deferral is not enough, we recommend they seek help elsewhere!

What To Do After Being Rejected By University of Rochester

Admission to University of Rochester, while they do have an admission rate on the higher side, is certainly not a given. After all, their admissions rate is definitely not 100%, that’s for sure. If your student received a rejection from University of Rochester, we want them to know that they’re not alone.

Even though rejection can feel like the end of the world, especially if it comes early on in the admissions process, we encourage students not to let that get in the way of the rest of their admissions process. As long as they’re willing to fix initial application mistakes and reframe their storytelling narrative the way that we suggest, a rejection from one school doesn’t mean more rejection is in their future.

Are you and your child set to move forward and take the next step in the admissions journey? Then sign up for Ivy Coach’s PostMortem. One of our former elite university admissions officers will work with you to develop a competitive strategy for Regular Decision admission.

After a rejection, students flock to Ivy Coach because they know we’ll guide them through their Regular Decision process and ensure they don’t make the same mistakes over and over again. We dare admissions officers not to give a student a spot at their school. In fact, we dare the admissions officers not to want to hug our students! That’s the trick. We make our students lovable. 

Getting Started with Ivy Coach After a University of Rochester Deferral or Rejection

If you’re interested in Ivy Coach’s plan to optimize your child’s Regular Decision case for admission to University of Rochester’s Class of 2030 after a deferral, or if you need help planning for Regular Decision applications after deferral or rejection, we recommend that you fill out our complimentary consultation form. We’ll then be in touch to let you know the next step forward to working with us.