Yale reduces deferrals, prioritizes final decisions in early action admissions
The News spoke with deferred applicants and the Office of Undergraduate Admissions about what a Yale deferral means.

Ellie Park, Multimedia Managing Editor
On Dec. 17, 2024, restrictive early action applicants for the class of 2029 opened Yale decision letters. Of the 6,729 Yale hopefuls, 17 percent were deferred for reconsideration.
While before the 2020-21 admissions cycle, the admission office consistently deferred more than half of early action applicants and denied roughly a third, Yale now prioritizes sending as many final decisions in December as possible, according to Jeremiah Quinlan, dean of undergraduate admissions.
“Over the past few cycles, the percentage of applicants who were denied has climbed to more than 70 percent while the number of deferred has decreased to less than 20 percent,” Mark Dunn, senior associate director for outreach and recruitment, explained. “The admissions office does not operate with a specific target or quota for the number of students who are deferred versus denied.”
Quinlan attributed an “intentional shift” in the admission office’s approach to the growing size of the applicant pool and an increase in academically uncompetitive applicants since the 2020-21 cycle. He added that the shift to deferring more students was also informed by the need to make deferrals more indicative. Many high school counselors told him that receiving “a clear no from Yale” in December would help them better advise their students.
Raunak Mondal from California and Ronak Ailawadi from Michigan, both high school seniors who were deferred from Yale, said their knowledge of decreased deferral rate informed their reactions to their deferral.
“To be honest, I thought I was going to get deferred — I anticipated that as the most probable outcome. Still, after seeing the numbers I wasn’t really that disappointed,” Ailawadi told the News.
“When I talked about [my deferral] with my parents, friends, and counselors, they all saw it as a good sign,” Mondal said. “Since less students got deferred this year compared to previous years at Yale, I felt that I was probably given special consideration in the admissions process compared to the majority of candidates who were rejected in the REA round.”
Ailawadi said that he preferred Yale’s deferral policy to that of its peers, such as Harvard and Princeton. “Soft deferrals,” he believes, can provide unnecessary stress.
Mondal told the News that his deferral, instead of rejection, motivated him to apply to more competitive institutions like Yale and inspired him to continue pursuing extracurriculars in his community.
Both Ailawadi and Mondal plan to write letters of continued interest.
“I know that my chances are probably pretty low, but given my deferral I wouldn’t change anything about my application,” Ailawadi told the News. “Yale is still my dream. It’s a little bit disappointing that I have to wait all the way to March, but that’s not really a problem for me. Either way, I’ll keep growing.”
Ailawadi and Mondal, along with the rest of the applicants to the class of 2029, will hear of their final admissions decision by April 1.