Deferrals can happen, and so can rejections, even for the student who has perfect straight As and top test scores. These factors are no longer enough for success in the elite college admissions game. 

For students who were deferred from the Class of 2030 at Occidental College, they’ll now hear back about their application by April 1st, along with all the other Regular Decision applicants. That can feel like a long time to wait, especially for those eager students who intentionally applied early in the hope of getting the admissions process over with. In the meantime, we’re glad to say there are still steps students can be taking to put themselves in a good spot for the rest of the college admissions process. 

For those who were denied admission to Occidental in their ED I round, there are still steps forward to be taken in the admissions process, they just don’t lead towards Occidental any more. But who knows! You may even find a school you like better than Occidental in the process. 

What Percentage of Early Decision I and Early Decision II Applicants Does Occidental College Typically Defer or Reject?

Occidental College doesn’t offer a non-binding Early application option; they only offer Early Decision I and Early Decision II. The school’s website does say that deferral is unlikely, noting, “Early Decision applicants typically receive a final decision: admit or deny. In a small number of cases, we may defer a decision to Regular Decision to review additional information in the broader applicant context.”

So, if you received a rejection from Occidental in their Early Decision I round, know that you’re not alone! There are many other candidates who are in the same spot as you. 

Occidental College EDI, EDII, & RD Acceptance Rate

Occidental College’s acceptance rate for the Class of 2029 was 44.6%, with a 65% acceptance rate for those students who applied ED I or ED II.

Admissions Cycle	Occidental College 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	65%	44.6%
2023-2024	Class of 2028	47.9%	44.2%
2022-2023	Class of 2027	52.2%	39.9%
2021-2022	Class of 2026	59.2%	39.4%
2020-2021	Class of 2025	58.7%	38.2%
2019-2020	Class of 2024	52.4%	40.9%
2018-2019	Class of 2023	48.9%	36.7%
2017-2018	Class of 2022	47.9%	37.3%
2016-2017	Class of 2021	48.9%	41.8%
2015-2016	Class of 2020	47.4%	45.8%
2014-2015	Class of 2019	47.5%	44.9%
2013-2014	Class of 2018	52.4%	42.0%
2012-2013	Class of 2017	49.0%	42.4%
2011-2012	Class of 2016	47.2%	39.3%
2010-2011	Class of 2015	Not Reported	38.7%
2009-2010	Class of 2014	Not Reported	41.9%
2008-2009	Class of 2013	Not Reported	42.9%
2007-2008	Class of 2012	Not Reported	Not Reported
2006-2007	Class of 2011	Not Reported	Not Reported
2005-2006	Class of 2010	54.5%	42.0%
2004-2005	Class of 2009	Not Reported	40.8%
2003-2004	Class of 2008	Not Reported	Not Reported
2002-2003	Class of 2007	Not Reported	Not Reported
2001-2002	Class of 2006	Not Reported	42.8%
2000-2001	Class of 2005	49.0%	48.0%

What Percentage of Early Decision I and Early Decision II Applicants Does Occidental College Typically Accept?

Across both their Early Decision I and Early Decision II applicants, Occidental College had an overall Early acceptance rate of 65% for the Class of 2029. Out of the 466 students who applied Early Decision, 223 of them were offered a spot. That acceptance rate is over 20% higher than the Regular Decision admit rate. 

What Should Applicants Do After Being Deferred by Occidental College

PostMortem Application Review

After a deferral from Occidental College, the best 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:

• Provide comprehensive feedback on up to three college applications. Ivy Coach’s counselor will review both essay and non-essay sections of each application.
• Brainstorm a powerful extracurricular hook to place a student in the most advantageous spot for admission. That hook should thread through the rest of a student’s application, providing them a unique perspective to showcase to admissions officers that helps differentiate them from every other student they’re competing against for admission.
• Fix mistakes that we see. And trust us, they’re there. No student’s first application is perfect. In fact, most contain a variety of errors. Even something seemingly insignificant can have a negative effect on the admissions game, especially the lower a school’s acceptance rate drops.
• Craft a Regular Decision school list. We’re very good at spotting missing schools from a student’s list that we know they would be a competitive applicant to, so we make sure those are added for the Regular Decision round. 

Common Mistakes Caught During Ivy Coach’s PostMortem

Students make a lot of the same mistakes in their applications. Sometimes they do things based on outdated advice. Sometimes they might’ve just gotten bad advice. We’re here to correct that. The errors below aren’t an exhaustive list, but these are some of the most common ones we catch. Check out your child’s application and make sure they didn’t include any of the following. 

• A Personal Statement focusing on sports, music, community service, grandparents, or travel. These are our five topics that are never allowed for the essay. 
• A Why College essay that’s an identical copy of their Why College essay for a different school. Even if they swapped out the names of classes and professors, admissions officers can tell when a student just played Mad Libs with a few words. And that doesn’t show genuine excitement about a school at all, does it?
• A student included a dollar amount fundraised for a charitable cause. Dollar signs make the student instantly come across as unlikable to admissions officers.
• The student listed out every single activity, honor, and community service hour they ever did all in one essay, trying to impress admissions officers. Ivy Coach’s students don’t have to try to impress admissions officers. They just do.
• Their application came across as well-rounded. That hasn’t worked on admissions officers in about 30 years. Seriously. The crucial part of a successful application is its uniqueness, the singularity of a student’s hook. Not that they look like a carbon copy of every other applicant, definitely no!
• Applying for a school that they weren’t competitive enough for in the first place. At Ivy Coach, we tell it like it is. If a student’s Early Action or Early Decision choice wasn’t the right one, we’ll let them know.

Write a Letter of Continued Interest

The Letter of Continued Interest is a very important part of turning that deferral into an offer of admission in the next few months. That’s why it’s crucial to make certain your child is only writing a letter that will help their case.

Your child’s Letter of Continued Interest must be a love letter to the university. Think about it: you wouldn’t want a generic, fill-in-the-blank love letter that could apply to anyone, right? Admissions officers don’t want a generic Letter of Continued Interest for their school. They want something chock full of details that show a student is really excited about contributing to the school via their singular hook. They should be learning something new about their school from that letter!

The Letter of Continued Interest needs to catch the attention of an admissions officer right off the bat. Otherwise, your child’s application will blend in with everyone else, and they definitely lose their shot at getting accepted. A student’s hook should demonstrate how they’re in a unique position to benefit the school, and they have to make it clear and easy for admissions officers to understand that.

What a Letter of Continued Interest Should Not Do

Of course, there are things the Letter of Continued Interest should never contain. Under no circumstances should there be academic updates included. We don’t care if your child got an A+ on their AP Calc BC Mideterm. Admissions officers won’t care either. It sounds like bragging, and bragging is unlikable. 

A Letter of Continued Interest also needs to creatively keep an admissions officer engaged. Here’s a heads up: it shouldn’t start with their name. It should paint a clear picture of that singular unique hook, showcasing how they’ll contribute their hook to the specific aspects of the school, like its programs, institutes, culture, traditions, and activities.

If this advice is different from anything else you’ve heard (and it probably is), we’re sorry about that. We know there’s a lot of bad advice floating around out there. Hopefully, there’s still time to correct those mistakes before your child submits a letter which wouldn’t paint them in the best possible light. 

When Applicants Should Submit Their Letters of Continued Interest

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

However, the one and only time we will tell a student to definitely not send that letter is the day leading up to Christmas Eve or between Christmas and New Year’s. Admissions officers deserve a holiday, too, right? In that case, we have students wait to send the letter in until a few days into the New Year. 

It’s important to note that we only said wait to send, not wait to write. That letter is going to be exactly how we’d encourage a student to reposition their Regular Decision applications, many of which will be due January 1st. So, they should draft that letter and then use it as a guide moving forward.

Chances of Getting into Occidental College After Being Deferred

As we mentioned above, Occidental College does not defer many students, according to their website. However, a pretty universal statistic we have 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 year to year and school to school, it serves as a fairly consistent threshold.  

That one in ten rate rises to about 40% for students who 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, as well as greatly improve their odds for the Regular Decision process.

A Deferred Student’s Chances Improve Dramatically with Ivy Coach

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

However, we’re also very realistic at Ivy Coach. We tell it like it is, as we said before. 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 do is give them the best possible chance to gain admissions. If quadrupling a student’s chances post-deferral is not enough, bon voyage and happy applying!

What To Do After Being Rejected By Occidental College

Occidental College’s acceptance rate for the Class of 2029 was under 50%, meaning more than half  the hopeful students who submitted an application were unfortunately turned away. If your child is one of those students, don’t let it be the end of the world. They’re not alone.

There’s still time for a student to move forward after a rejection and end up successful in the admissions process. All they have to do is be willing to fix their initial mistakes and reframe their application narrative the way that we suggest.

Are you and your child ready to move forward and take the next step in the admissions journey with confidence? 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.

Students come to Ivy Coach after rejection because they know we’ll ensure they don’t make the same mistakes over and over again in their Regular Decision application process. We like to say we dare admissions officers not to give a student a spot at their school, and that’s what we do even for students who have already faced an early rejection in the process.

Steps to Take After Being Rejected by Occidental College: PostMortem Application Review

After hearing back about a rejection from Occidental, we don’t recommend delaying before reaching out to Ivy Coach for a PostMortem application review. But before that, take a deep breath. It may not feel this way, but everything will work out. You now have the chance to rework your application strategy before you send it off to other schools, and obviously, it didn’t work the first time. You’re going to want to seize the opportunity. 

During Ivy Coach’s PostMortem, we:

• Rework your current applications that are still unsubmitted. We’ll go through each and every part of both the essay and no-essay portions of each application and readjust as we review. You may think these applications are pretty much done, but we can guarantee you that after receiving a rejection from Occidental, you need to course correct before it’s too late. There are no third chances in college admissions.
• Present you as a uniquely talented individual rather than a well-rounded one. Well-rounded candidates don’t fare well in the admissions process. If you confuse admissions officers with a bunch of disparate activities that don’t thread together in any way or support your primary narrative, it becomes much easier for them to reject you. They don’t have a clear picture of who you are or what you’ll bring to their school! You can show them that clear picture via a singular hook.
• Correct the small mistakes that may have contributed to your rejection. Sometimes, a rejection can be because of an incredibly small reason. When colleges have such a surplus of applicants to choose from, though, they’re allowed to be picky. For example, students who brag do themselves no favor in the Occidental admissions process. Hot tip: no one likes a braggart. Writing about how you 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 is bigtime bragging, and it makes admissions officers want to show you what real selectivity looks like. Reject!
• Reevaluate your admissions prospects. 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. Not all students are right for ED II, and not all schools offer an ED II round. So it’s time to buckle down and do your research in order to determine an admissions pathway that works for you.

Application Assistance

Following the PostMortem, which we need in order 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. After making a game plan, it’s time to “getcha head in the game”! We want to clear those other applications of any errors and put you in the best possible spot for a positive admissions decision. 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 sway admissions officers to root for you.

What Not to Do After Being Rejected by Occidental

Below are five guaranteed ways to ensure your Regular Decision admission round goes poorly after you receive an Occidental 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. If you were starring in a horror movie, the person watching would be screaming at the screen, telling you not to make the same mistakes all over again! This is your only chance to pivot to a more effective strategy.
2. Do not, under any circumstances, reach out to the Occidental 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: they were right not to let you in. Don’t waste anyone’s time, especially your own. You have more important things to be focusing on!
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. 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. 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), but they are your #1 ally in the fight for your college future. Alienating them is the worst thing you can do right now.

Occidental Deferral and Rejection FAQ

Is there anything else I need to do post-deferral besides submitting a Letter of Continued Interest?

Yes, you need to submit their mid-year grades as soon as they become available. Those mid-year grades will be considered in the Regular Decision round.

After a rejection from Occidental, should I submit my Regular Decision applications right away?

Absolutely not! You need to use that rejection as a data point: something isn’t working. Don’t rush to get your applications submitted right away, thinking the same strategy that failed you at Occidental is going to work at other schools. You need to pause, take stock, make adjustments, and then move forward with your applications. 

Do I still have options after receiving an Occidental College rejection? 

Yes, of course! Just like with deferrals, there is still hope on the college horizon for you. It’s just not at Occidental; it will be somewhere new that you may not even know about yet! 

Getting Started with Ivy Coach After an Occidental College Deferral or Rejection

If you’re interested in Ivy Coach’s plan to optimize your child’s Regular Decision case for admission to Occidental College’s Class of 2030 in the event of a deferral, or if you need help planning for Regular Decision applications after a deferral or rejection, we advise you fill out our complimentary consultation form. We’ll reach out to let you know how we can move forward together.