How to Write a Letter of Continued Interest

You’ve made a great college list and chosen to apply Early Action or Early Decision to your top school, but now you’ve gotten your admissions decision back: you’ve been deferred. Or you applied during the regular cycle, and you’ve now been waitlisted. While it may feel like a rejection, it’s not — in fact, your hard work and proven leadership have placed you in an elite position.

You may not have been offered admission to your favorite college yet, but you received a notice of deferral or waitlisting from the admissions office. Now, you have the opportunity to double down on showing your demonstrated interest in your top choice college(s) and reconfirm your commitment to attending. You can do that in the form of a Letter of Continued Interest (LoCI).

What is a Letter of Continued Interest?

As the name might suggest, a Letter of Continued Interest is a letter you can send to your regional admissions officer, full of updates and reiteration of your enthusiasm about the school. Every school’s policy on LoCIs is different, but usually, students will send this letter directly to their regional admissions representative, and it will likely be reviewed by the entire Admissions Committee.

Waitlisted and deferred students are often on par (in terms of academic excellence and extracurricular leadership) with those who are admitted, so don’t get discouraged by your application status. Instead, follow this step-by-step guide to ensure that you are making the most out of your Letter of Continued Interest that you’ll send to admissions officers.

1. Do not repeat anything that is in your original application.

Remember that your LoCI is a supplement to your original college application. The admissions officer reading your Letter of Continued Interest is quite often the admissions officer who already recommended your profile for admission or for deferral/waitlisting. That means that they’re familiar with your application already, so repeating any information that they already have will be unnecessary and redundant. Your Letter of Continued Interest should only add new and significant information, which we elaborate on below.

This doesn’t mean you can’t mention a previous extracurricular activity — for instance, say your volleyball team is your most significant extracurricular activity, which you included on your Common Application Activities List. However, since you submitted your application materials, you’ve been promoted to team captain and won a state championship. That would qualify as a “significant update.” Even if you’ve chosen to start your own passion project or pursue a new extracurricular, that could be included as well. If it’s something you would put on your initial college applications, it can definitely go in your LoCI.

2. Include significant updates.

As mentioned above, one of the best things that you can do in your Letter of Continued Interest is to update the admissions office on things that have transpired within your activities since you submitted your application. Now is an excellent time to tell them how that event you hoped to complete back in November turned out. If speaking about an event, be as specific as possible and make sure that you include numbers where you can — how many people participated, how many donations were collected in the fundraiser, how many collaborators contributed their time, etc.

It is your job here to emphasize to the Admissions Committee why your updates make you a competitive candidate. Have you been selected for any more community awards? Have you received a top mark/award within your graduating class? Be sure to include any major updates, and don’t forget to draft and compose your Letter of Continued Interest using your own voice (although do not treat this as an additional college essay). Part of the reason you were deferred or waitlisted is that the Admissions Committee could sense a bright voice in your writing, so keep up that energy as you write this Letter of Continued Interest.

3. Be kind to yourself.

Being deferred can feel very disheartening, but see this just as “a dream deferred.” If you are familiar with the poet Langston Hughes, you might’ve heard this — if not, search for “A Dream Deferred,” and you will see Hughes lists approximately 7 possibilities for a dream that is put off or delayed. Simply put, you’re going to be just fine wherever you end up, and college admissions decisions do not determine your worth as a student nor as a person.

In the admissions world, there are four possible outcomes for a student. You might be admitted, deferred again to be read among the Regular Decision pool, denied, or waitlisted. The fact that you were deferred or waitlisted at all means that your application was incredible — usually, you’re competing against 30,000-50,000 other students, so your admission odds are always low by default. Despite that, you are still in the running (Ivies often only defer 30-80% of students), so congratulate yourself on this win.

Granted, any response that isn’t an admit will certainly feel negative. Take it from a former Admissions Officer of Dartmouth, the ninth oldest college in the nation — a college that is older than the nation of the U.S. — I assure you being deferred or waitlisted is an achievement, not a failure!

4. Reflect on any major life changes that occurred since you submitted your initial application.

Admissions officers are interested in you as a whole person. One of the most important things that your Letter of Continued Interest can do is allow them to understand more deeply how you have changed and grown as a person. Do not leave out changes that have occurred in your values, your principles, your beliefs, your passion, or your life mission. These kinds of updates are as important as your extracurricular and academic updates.

Consider connecting these updates to a narrative that complements (not mirrors verbatim) the way the University writ large communicates its own mission, motto, or alma mater. Without directly citing them in your Letter of Continued Interest, present yourself as a candidate who will produce your own legacy similar to the legacies of famous alumni. Explore the university’s favorite famous alumni quotes and think about how you have implemented similar ideas/ideals. Include your reflections in your Letter of Continued Interest in your personal voice.

6. Reiterate your commitment to attend the school if selected.

Schools are always trying to improve their yield rates, or the percentage of students who are accepted and who end up accepting their admissions offer. The higher their yield rate, the more “desirable” the school appears to be. So, you want to confirm (if it’s true) that, if accepted, you will definitely accept your offer of admission.

Again, don’t lie if that isn’t the case, but if you’re sending a Letter of Continued Interest, it’s safe to assume that it’s indeed the case that this is your top choice school. Don’t go overboard and write a new “Why School” essay, but you can provide the same energy and enthusiasm for the school that you expressed in your initial application.

6. Adhere to the word count (if there is one) and any other guidelines given by the admissions office.

While the above guidelines will certainly help you create a standout LoCI, you should, above all else, follow the admissions office’s guidelines. By now, many schools are used to receiving these kinds of letters from students, so they might even have a portal or designated email address just for them. The one way you can guarantee that your LoCI will work against you is by not following instructions.

If there are no clear guidelines about your LoCI, our Letter of Continued Interest, as a rule of thumb, should not be any longer than one page. Be as concise as possible. Be sure to follow all given format requirements, but if there are none outlined on the admissions website, stick to traditional letter formatting. 

Admissions officers still have a lot of reading to do at this time of year. Most will only have approximately 60 seconds to read your Letter of Continued Interest. While staying within the requirements, think strategically about how to format your Letter of Continued Interest so that their eyes hone in on the most important updates quickly. Make your letter scannable but still as full of personality as possible.