[deservingend]

"it's also extremely unlikely to be accepted after being deferred" - What are your sources on this?

I meant your essays for other applications.

I'm a recent college grad. I didn't apply to Harvard but did get into Stanford, MIT, Princeton, etc. One thing you learn attending a top school and actually meeting a large volume of admits is that the people who talked about college admissions back in high school (on CollegeConfidential and elsewhere) didn't know jack shit.

[jellyksong]

I believe that ~100 deferred applicants were accepted last year, out of the deferred pool of 3,000 and the regular pool of 30,000.

Hm, what are some misconceptions then? What do you think they are looking for?