If you were deferred from Virginia Tech, don’t be disheartened yet. Although deferral is disappointingly common, there are still steps that a student can take to boost their chances of admission in the Regular Decision round of applicants. 

Now, if you were rejected from Virginia Tech, it’s a slightly different story, but we want to emphasize that there is still hope in the admissions process. You’re not out of the college admissions race quite yet!

What Percentage of Early Action Applicants Does Virginia Tech Typically Defer or Deny?

Virginia Tech only offers Early Action, which is the non-binding application option, rather than Early Decision. They do not publish the statistics of the number of students who applied and were accepted, nor do they share the number of students they defer or do not offer admission to. 

What Percentage of Early Action Applicants Does Virginia Tech Typically Defer?

Virginia Tech only offers Early Action, which is the non-binding application option, rather than Early Decision. They do not publish the statistics of the number of students who applied and were accepted, nor do they share the number of students they defer. 

Virginia Tech Acceptance Rate

Virginia Tech has not yet released their acceptance rate for the Class of 2030. However, the Class of 2029 saw a total of 52,296 applicants with a 54.8% acceptance rate.

Admissions Cycle	Virginia Tech Class Year	Early Action Admission Rate	Regular Decision Admission Rate
2025-2026	Class of 2030	Not Reported	Not Reported
2024-2025	Class of 2029	Not Reported	54.8%
2023-2024	Class of 2028	Not Reported	57.03%
2022-2023	Class of 2027	Not Reported	56.98%
2021-2022	Class of 2026	Not Reported	56.00%
2020-2021	Class of 2025	Not Reported	65.77%
2019-2020	Class of 2024	Not Reported	70.04%
2018-2019	Class of 2023	Not Reported	64.85%
2017-2018	Class of 2022	Not Reported	70.06%
2016-2017	Class of 2021	Not Reported	70.87%
2015-2016	Class of 2020	Not Reported	73.41%
2014-2015	Class of 2019	Not Reported	72.63%
2013-2014	Class of 2018	Not Reported	70.28%
2012-2013	Class of 2017	Not Reported	70.38%
2011-2012	Class of 2016	Not Reported	66.58%
2010-2011	Class of 2015	Not Reported	67.01%

What Percentage of Early Action Applicants Does Virginia Tech Typically Accept?

Across their Early Action applicants, Virginia Tech does not offer a detailed breakdown of the number of applicants who applied or were accepted Early Action. However, we at Ivy Coach always recommend submitting an Early Action application if they do wish to apply since applying EA sure beats the odds of earning admission via Regular Decision. Besides, the student isn’t bound to attend if they do in fact earn admission in Early Action. That makes it a little easier if you’re a commitment-phobe!

What Should Applicants Do After Being Deferred by Virginia Tech?

PostMortem Application Review

After being deferred from Virginia Tech, we recommend setting up Ivy Coach’s PostMortem application review. 

During the PostMortem session, we will:

• Offer detailed feedback on up to three college applications. Ivy Coach’s counselor, a former elite college admissions officer, will review both essay and non-essay sections of the applications.
• Brainstorm a strong extracurricular hook to put a student in the best possible spot for admission. That hook will be key to differentiating your child from everyone else they’re competing against in the admissions process, and that will be a lot of other students who also have good grades and test scores. 
• Correct application mistakes. No student nails it on the first try, because they simply don’t know exactly what admissions officers are looking for. They’ve never been on the other side of the process, how could they know what makes an admissions officer put an application in the reject pile? Our counselors, who have all been “in the room where it happens”, are experts on what to do and what not to do when it comes to the elite college admissions process. 
• Complete your child’s Regular Decision school list. Student lists frequently have gaps, and we’re happy to fill them in with the appropriate schools we identify. So often, students end up at the schools we deemed a glaring omission from their college list.

Common Mistakes Caught During Ivy Coach’s PostMortem

From application to application, we see a lot of the same mistakes. Of course, the below isn’t a comprehensive list; we’d be here for hours. But, these mistakes are a great place to start with ensuring your child doesn’t have any of the typical application errors.

• Writing a Personal Statement about sports, music, community service, grandparents, or travel. These topics are way too overdone, so they’re on our banned list.
• Submitting Why College essays that, more or less, don’t change between schools. College admissions is not a game of Mad Libs! It’s way more high stakes than that.
• Listing the dollar amount that your child fundraised for a charitable cause. Admissions officers see dollar signs and it makes students seem unlikable.
• Including every single activity, honor, and community service hour they completed over the past four years of high school. That comes across as bragging, and it’s just not necessary. It makes it look like a student is trying to impress admissions officers. Our students don’t have to try to impress admissions officers, they just do. 
• A well-rounded application. This is a big one. The whole well-rounded thing might’ve worked 30 years ago, but this isn’t the nineties anymore. Step into modern times and understand that unless a student has a compelling, singular hook, they’re getting shuffled right into the rejection pile. 
• Applying to a school that they weren’t a strong enough applicant for. At Ivy Coach, we tell it like it is. If a student’s Early choice wasn’t the right one, we’ll tell them and course correct moving forward.

Crafting a Compelling Letter of Continued Interest

A student’s Letter of Continued Interest is the way for them to turn that deferral into an offer of admission rather than a rejection. It’s important to make sure your child isn’t throwing away that critical opportunity in this letter; you don’t want them to be including things that are hurting their case. 

We like to call the Letter of Continued Interest a “love letter” to the university. Just like dating in real life, there are green flags, and there are red flags. We want your child’s letter to be full of green flags only, and the primary way to do that is to focus solely on their hook. 

From the first sentence, a student should be gripping the admissions officer who is reading the letter with compelling details about how their unique hook puts them in a position to benefit the school, with regard to programs, extracurriculars, lab offerings, etc., unlike any of the other many deferred students. 

What a Letter of Continued Interest Should Not Do

Just like there are green flags in the Letter of Continued Interest should do, there is a long list of red flags, too. We’ll run through some of the top most common errors we’ve seen in Letters of Continued Interest that will only detract from a student’s chance of admission, rather than help. 

Your child’s Letter of Continued Interest isn’t the place for a list of academic updates. They only have about 650-words to make their case. So don’t spend it mentioning earning a 100 on the AP Chemistry midterm exam. This will render a student less likable. That’s the opposite of what we want!

If you want your child to bore admissions officers from the start, a great thing to do is have the first sentence of their letter be, “My name is…”. Boring! Students need to get creative (but we definitely don’t mean write an acrostic poem). The Letter of Continued Interest should present a clear picture of their singular narrative and display how they’ll contribute their hook to the specific aspects of the school, including programs, institutes, culture, traditions, and activities.

This may be in opposition to some of the other advice you’ve heard about the Letter of Continued Interest (there’s a ton of terrible advice out there, we know!). We hope it’s not too late for your child to make the necessary edits before submitting theirs.

When Applicants Should Submit Their Letters of Continued Interest

We tell students to submit their Letter of Continued Interest as soon as possible. This would ideally happen within a few days of receiving a deferral. So, if a student learns they are deferred on December 15th, we like students to send in their Letters of Continued Interest before December 20th.

However, the last thing we want is to bug admissions officers during the holiday. Under no circumstances should a student be submitting their letter the day immediately before Christmas Eve or between Christmas and New Year’s. Then, we recommend they wait until a few days into the New Year. 

And we said wait to submit, not wait to write. Students should absolutely draft that Letter of Continued Interest as soon as possible, because it’s exactly how we’d encourage them to pivot the rest of their applications before they start to submit to schools for Regular Decision.

Chances of Getting into Virginia Tech After Being Deferred

Virginia Tech, like many schools, does not release the acceptance stats for students who are admitted after being deferred in the Early Action round. 

However, a pretty universal statistic we’ve found at Ivy Coach is that about 10% of deferred candidates ultimately earn admission to the school that kicked the can on their acceptance decision. Although the percentage can vary yearly and from school to school, it serves as a generally consistent threshold.  

That percent jumps up to about 40% for students who first come to Ivy Coach after being deferred. We work closely with a student to create a compelling Letter of Interest and boost their chances of admission after a deferral, which historically quadruples the likelihood of acceptance. 

A Deferred Student’s Chances Improve Dramatically with Ivy Coach

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

We’re also very realistic at Ivy Coach, though. And we tell it like it is, as we mentioned above. 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 admission. And if quadrupling a student’s chances post-deferral is not enough, godspeed to them!

What To Do After Being Rejected By Virginia Tech

Considering Virginia Tech had an acceptance rate of just over 50% for the Class of 2029, almost half of the students who applied were ultimately not accepted. If your child was rejected from Virginia Tech, they’re not the only one.

We tell students not to let that rejection cast a shadow over the rest of their admissions process. We wish they’d come to us before receiving the deferral, so we could have helped them avoid it, but as long as a student is willing to fix their initial mistakes and reframe their application narrative the way that we suggest, they’ll have a better shot with other schools on their list.

Are you and your child ready to move forward? If so, don’ t delay in signing 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.

PostMortem Application Review

The reason students come to Ivy Coach after a rejection is because we guide them through their Regular Decision process, ensuring they’re not repeating the mistakes that got them denied in the Early round. Our counselors optimize a student’s case for Regular Decision admission by crafting a concrete plan to move forward and achieve success.

During Ivy Coach’s PostMortem, our counselor will:

• Evaluate your current applications. 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. And if you think that these applications are close to done, we’ve got some news for you. You’ve already been rejected once. You don’t want to collect any more of those. 
• Craft a narrative that presents you as a uniquely talented individual rather than as a well-rounded one. That’s the opposite of what we want in the admissions process! So, we’ll help you 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 in a bad way. 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 you’re excited about! Of course, not all students are right for ED II, and not all schools provide an ED II round. It’s time to figure out the admissions pathway that works best for you!

Application Assistance

Following the PostMortem, where we take note of what went wrong and how we need to reposition your application narrative, we:

• Overhaul your applications with Ivy Coach’s assistance. During that Postmortem, you learned what didn’t work. Now, we need to put that into practice in your application. We can’t fix every mistake you’ve made throughout high school, that’s true, but there is 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 Virginia Tech

Below are five bonafide ways to short-circuit your Regular Decision admissions chances after receiving a Virginia Tech rejection:

1. Do not submit your remaining applications as is. If you’ve got an injury on the field, do you keep running on that bad knee even when you know something’s wrong? No! So don’t do that in the college admissions process, 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 Virginia Tech admissions office with useless questions about why you were rejected. After your PostMortem with Ivy Coach, you’ll know why you were rejected, and you’ll be able to avoid doing that in 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 simply 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. Keep that in mind before you send an angry email or leave a frustrated voice message! 

Virginia Tech University Deferral and Rejection FAQ

Should I submit lots of extra material to Virginia Tech if I’m deferred? 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 Virginia Tech with letters every week or every month. Such a tactic will drown out the power of your Letter of Continued Interest. You have to let that speak for itself!

Why should I spend more time on Virginia Tech? 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 Virginia Tech after a deferral. As a deferred candidate, you’ve still got a genuine shot, and Virginia Tech is the school to which you earmarked your Early Action card. Don’t waste it by giving up mid-game.

Can I reapply to Virginia Tech in the Regular Decision round if I was rejected Early?

No! If you were rejected from Virginia Tech, 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 (or as a first-year applicant should you choose to pursue a postgraduate year or a gap year next year), but you will not be a student at Virginia Tech as a member of the Class of 2030 this coming fall.

Do I still have options after receiving a Virginia Tech rejection? 

Yes, of course! 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.

Getting Started with Ivy Coach After a Virginia Tech Deferral or Rejection

If you’re interested in Ivy Coach’s plan to optimize your child’s Regular Decision case for admission to the Class of 2030 at Virginia Tech after being deferred in the Early Action round, or if you need help planning for Regular Decision applications after you’ve been rejected EA from Virginia Tech, fill out our complimentary consultation form. We’ll then be in touch to outline our next steps.