Were you deferred by Bard College to the Class of 2030 in the Early Action or Early Decision round? If so, you’re likely wondering if you genuinely have a shot of earning admission to your dream school in the Regular Decision round, or if it would be more worthwhile to cut your losses and focus on the other schools to which you’ll be applying. 

Unfortunately, deferrals and rejections are a reality, even for a student who has straight As and top test scores. If that sounds like you, we hate to have to be the ones to tell you that being a stellar student just isn’t enough anymore. But there’s still time for you to fix your approach to the highly selective college admissions process moving forward. You’re not on the Titanic; we can turn this ship around!

What Percentage of Early Action, Early Decision I, and Early Decision II Applicants Does Bard Typically Defer?

Bard offers both a non-binding Early Action application option as well as two Early Decision rounds. They do not share the number of students they defer or accept from the Early Action pool, nor is their Early Decision data very recent. But from what we can see, the Early Decision acceptance rate has gotten more competitive from the Class of 2021 to the Class of 2026, jumping from a 66.67%, skyrocketing up to 89% the following two years, and then plunging down to 56.14% for the Class of 2026. 

Bard Early Action, Early Decision I, and Early Decision II Acceptance Rate

Especially for the Classes of 2022 and 2023, it was really worth getting those application materials together in time for the Early deadline. Almost 90% of students who applied ED both of those years were accepted!

Admissions Cycle	Bard College Class Year	Early Action Admission Rate	Early Decision I and Early Decision II  Admission Rate	Regular Decision Admission Rate
2025-2026	Class of 2030	Not Reported	Not Reported	Not Reported
2024-2025	Class of 2029	Not Reported	Not Reported	Not Reported
2023-2024	Class of 2028	Not Reported	Not Reported	Not Reported
2022-2023	Class of 2027	Not Reported	Not Reported	Not Reported
2021-2022	Class of 2026	Not Reported	56.14%	46.08%
2020-2021	Class of 2025	Not Reported	Not Reported	59.99%
2019-2020	Class of 2024	Not Reported	66.00%	59.38%
2018-2019	Class of 2023	Not Reported	88.89%	64.76%
2017-2018	Class of 2022	Not Reported	89.13%	65.56%
2016-2017	Class of 2021	Not Reported	66.67%	58.21%

What To Do After Being Deferred by Bard College

PostMortem Application Review

After a deferral from Bard, 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 in-depth feedback on up to three of a student’s college applications. Ivy Coach’s counselor will review both essay and non-essay sections of each one.
• Brainstorm a more compelling extracurricular hook to place a student in the most advantageous spot for admission. The goal is to thread this hook through the entire application, providing a student their own unique perspective to showcase to admissions officers.
• Fix application errors. And trust us, there will be errors. No student’s first pass is completely perfect when it comes to college applications. In fact, most contain a large number 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 stronger Regular Decision school list. We’re very good at spotting gaps in a student’s list where we know they would be a competitive applicant, so we make sure those are added for consideration.

Common Mistakes Caught During Ivy Coach’s PostMortem

Among the many, many, many applications that we’ve reviewed at Ivy Coach, a lot of the mistakes are pretty similar. Sometimes students have clearly gotten outdated advice. Sometimes they might’ve just gotten bad advice. We’re here to correct all of that. The ones we’ve listed below are by no means exhaustive, but these are some of the most common ones we catch. 

• A Personal Statement focusing on any of our five forbidden topics: sports, music, community service, grandparents, or travel.
• A Why College essay that’s a copied and pasted version of their Why College essay for a different school. Even if students swapped out the names of classes and professors, admissions officers can tell when they’re reading a Mad Lib submission. And that doesn’t show genuine excitement about a school at all, does it?
• A student included the dollar amount that they fundraised for a charitable cause. Dollar signs make students come across as unlikable.
• The student listed out all of their activities, honors, and community service hours 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.
• The application is too well-rounded. That hasn’t worked on admissions officers in about 30 years. You read that right. The crucial part of a successful application is its uniqueness, the singularity of a student’s hook. Not that they look like a duplicate of every other applicant, no 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 be honest. That’s our policy.

Write a Letter of Continued Interest

A student’s Letter of Continued Interest is the key to unlocking the door of deferral. That’s why it’s especially important to make sure your child is including only what will help their case for admission in that letter, not hinder them.

The Letter of Continued Interest must be a love letter to the university; that cannot be overstated enough. And we’re not talking Shakespearean sonnet here; fancy formatting won’t impress admission officers. Rather, this should be a letter that waxes poetic about how the student will utilize their singular hook to contribute to a school’s atmosphere and be a positive addition to the campus. 

From the very first sentence, a student needs to immediately grip the admissions officer who is reading and make clear what they can bring to the university campus. How will they get deeply involved in the school’s culture and student body? They need to illustrate how and why they are more committed than any other deferred student out there.

What a Letter of Continued Interest Should Not Do

Just as well as there are dos in the Letter of Continued Interest should do, there is a long list of don’ts. We’ll run through the top most common errors we’ve seen in Letters of Continued Interest in the past that ultimately only detract from a student’s chance of admission, rather than help. 

Definitely no list of academic updates; that’s a poor way to utilize the limited space your child has. Plus, it generally renders a student less likable, which is the opposite effect that this letter should be having.

Oh, and the best way to keep an admissions officer engaged in your letter is definitely NOT to start with, “My name is…” Yawn! They know your child’s name; they read the admissions file, after all. Students need to craft 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.

Now, this may be contradictory to some of the other advice you’ve heard about the Letter of Continued Interest. Good! Hopefully, there’s still time for your child to course correct and draft a much stronger, more compelling letter.

When Applicants Should Submit Their Letters of Continued Interest

We have students submit their Letter of Continued Interest as soon as possible. This would ideally happen within a few days of receiving a deferral. For example, if a student learns they are deferred on December 12th, we like them to send in the Letter of Continued Interest by December 16th. We don’t want the school to think that deferral hurt a student’s feelings or made them less inclined to go there. 

That’s why time is of the essence, unless, of course, it’s already the holidays. If it’s the few days before Christmas or between Christmas and New Year’s, we absolutely do not recommend submitting. At that point, wait until a few days into the New Year. 

That doesn’t mean students should be waiting to write the letter itself, though. No, no, no. That Letter of Continued Interest is exactly how we’d encourage them to pivot the rest of their applications before they start to submit to schools for Regular Decision.

What To Do After Being Rejected By Bard

Although rejection can feel like the end of the world, there’s still time for a student to move forward and end up successful in the admissions process. All a student has 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 college admissions journey? Then it’s time to sign up for Ivy Coach’s PostMortem. One of our former elite university admissions officers will work with you to develop a competitive strategy to elite schools for Regular Decision admission.

PostMortem Application Review

After hearing back that you were rejected from Bard, the time is nigh to contact Ivy Coach for a PostMortem application review. But first, take a deep breath. It’s all going to work out. Know that lots of other candidates have been in the same spot before, and they all lived happily ever after. 

After you’ve taken a moment to rejuvenate yourself, you can dive in with renewed vigor and understand that you’ve been given a sort of blessing in disguise. You have the chance to change your application strategy before you send it off to other schools, and you’re going to want to take that chance. 

During Ivy Coach’s PostMortem, we:

• Help you to rework the current applications you’re in the process of completing. We go through both the essay and non-essay portions of each application and suggest changes 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 your RD applications are pretty much done, but, after receiving a reflection from Bard, why would you want to double down on the same mistakes?
• Work to present you as a uniquely talented individual rather than a well-rounded one. Well-rounded is never a successful strategy in elite college admissions. We’ll be the first to tell you that. If you come across as too well-rounded with a bunch of disparate activities that don’t thread together, you will confuse admissions officers. Instead, you need to pivot to a strategy that actually works: the singular hook.
• Correct the seemingly insignificant mistakes that likely played a part in your rejection decision. Sometimes, the reason for rejection can be incredibly small, but when colleges have such a surplus of applicants to choose from, they can (and will) be really, really picky. For instance, students who brag do themselves no favor in the Bard admissions process. News flash: no one likes a braggart. Writing about how you raised thousands of 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 counts as bragging!
• Reevaluate your admissions prospects and consider taking advantage of the Early Decision II round for a school that, while perhaps slightly less of a reach than Bard, hits the sweet spot between prestige and realism. 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 your PostMortem session, which is the first step for us to understand what went wrong with your application and how you need to reposition your narrative, we will:

• Overhaul your applications with Ivy Coach’s assistance. You have a game plan. Ready, set, execute! Strip your other applications of the common mistakes and put yourself in the best possible spot for a positive admissions decision. Although we can’t correct every error you’ve made throughout your past four years, 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.

Bard Deferral and Rejection FAQ

When does Bard typically revisit the applications of their deferred pool?

Like most universities, Bard returns its attention to deferred candidates towards the end of the Regular Decision cycle, typically in the last two weeks.

What’s the point of maintaining good grades and test scores now that I know Bard might be (or definitely is) off of the table?

Don’t let a deferral or rejection set you back. It can, of course, be understandably disheartening. It’s still absolutely essential that you strive for excellent academic performance as you round out your senior year. Your application will definitely not receive any further consideration if you let your grades slip, and you won’t be a strong candidate for any other schools if you’re boasting Cs, either!

If I was rejected from Bard, is all hope lost?

No, and that’s an awful attitude! We’re not giving up on you after one rejection, and neither should you. You absolutely have a shot, quite frankly potentially at an even better school than Bard, if you take our advice and turn your applications around by crafting that singular narrative with a compelling, powerful hook.

Can I appeal my rejection from Bard?

No. Nowhere on their admissions website does Bard say anything about accepting appeals, so all decisions are final. That doesn’t mean you can’t apply as a transfer candidate or re-apply next year as a first-year applicant, but for the 2025-2026 admissions cycle, it’s time to look beyond Bard.

Ivy Coach’s Assistance After a Bard College Deferral or Rejection

If you’re interested in Ivy Coach’s plan to optimize your child’s Regular Decision case for admission to Bard’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 to fill out our complimentary consultation form. We’ll then reach out to let you know our go-forward process for deferred or rejected students.