Received at 9.46 am, 15th december. Three applied from NJC for Early Action to Stanford. Zhong Liang and Varun were rejected. (don’t sweat it guys, so many more avenues out there which may be much better!) Well, they deferred me with a sweet sounding e-mail. I stayed up the whole night (or morning) but gave up waiting at around 6 am and slept till 10 am with my heart beating like crazy upon confronting the laptop. Deferred.

Two possible reasons for deferral:

1) I am not too strong enough an applicant and decision is hard to make, so postpone decision to Regular Decision pool to get a better picture of the whole Malaysian applicant pool before deciding. (Strong but not strong enough compared to others in Early Action) Cautious decision making…
2) They just want to wait for all the other Malaysian applicants to come in and compare me with them in the Regular Decision pool. But I have shown much interest in them by applying early, which is a plus point.

THE E-MAIL:

Dear Ern Sheong,

The Office of Undergraduate Admission has decided to defer your application to Stanford for further consideration during our Regular Decision process and will notify you of a final decision in early April. We appreciate the thought and effort you put into your application as well as selecting Stanford as your first-choice school. Your application clearly communicated to us your strong interest in the University.

You are among a small group being deferred for consideration with our Regular Decision candidates. The reasons for postponing a final decision vary, but in most cases we want to see first semester, senior-year grades or want to have the opportunity to review a candidate, in the context of the entire applicant pool. It is difficult to predict the chances of gaining admission, however in each of the past three years we have offered admission to about ten percent of those early applicants whom we deferred to Regular Decision. While we hope your strong interest in Stanford continues, we advise you to pursue other college alternatives as well.

Between now and April, we recommend you continue to strive for the highest level of academic performance and keep us up-to-date on your progress. Please ask your school to submit the Mid-Year School Report (downloadable from the Common Application website) and transcript as soon as grades are available. We also invite you to use the Optional Update Form (accessible online) to let us know about your new activities and achievements, and send any new test scores you might have. Additional recommendation letters, however, are not encouraged. In the meantime, please let us know if you have any questions or concerns. Please include your Stanford ID number (located at the top of this letter) or your Common Application number on your Mid-Year School Report, Optional Update Form and any correspondence.

As a more formal notice of your admission decision, we have mailed you a letter copy of this email.

With best wishes,

Richard H. Shaw

Dean of Admission and Financial Aid

(emphasis mine)

Nice words. Motivates me to apply to more universities in case they reject me outright. =(