The end of first semester marks a tumultuous time for many seniors as many colleges render verdicts on early admissions. By mid-February, the sting of rejections and the triumph of acceptances have worn off, and most have shifted their focus to the remainder of the semester. For some seniors, however, colleges have trapped them in the seemingly endless maze of a deferral.

Deferrals occur when a student’s early application is cycled back into the regular decision pile to be reconsidered. It is not a rejection, but it is still far from an acceptance, and many consider it to be the “purgatory” of college decisions.

“I guess the best thing I did was think of a deferral as a rejection because then I no longer had it in the back of my mind bothering me,” said senior Kanaai Shah, who was one of hundreds of students deferred from the prestigious University of Pennsylvania this year. “I feel like I won’t feel as bad if a rejection comes and I’ll be elated if an acceptance comes.”

Schools often have different deferral policies — some defer all those who are not accepted early, others defer the vast majority of early applicants, but most defer only those students they consider to be truly viable candidates.

In the 2014-15 school year, UPenn deferred 886 of 4,526 students from the early-decision round, and then accepted 97 of those deferred during the regular decision round, according to UPenn’s admissions website. Dartmouth deferred 600 students out of the 1,800 who applied early, and later accepted only 150 of those deferred. MIT accepted 248 of the 4,535 students deferred.

Each school is unique in terms of its guidelines for deferrals, but many of them use the same reasoning when deciding whom to defer. Christoph Guttentag, dean of undergraduate admission at Duke University, explained the subjective nature of deferrals during an interview with the New York Times.

“Some students were close to being admitted, with a lot of appealing qualities, but there was something — some ‘soft spot’ in the application or some uncertainty about how the student would ultimately look in the applicant pool — that kept the admissions committee from saying ‘yes,’” Guttentag said.

Allowing these students to add to their resumes between early and regular decision, usually between December and March, gives admission officers a more complete profile of the student, and can perhaps tip them over the edge to an acceptance, according to Guttentag.

“Many of them admit early action only those students whom they see as absolute slam dunk/we’d-admit-them-in-any-pool cases,” Guttentag said. “And since not every admit is a slam dunk for any college — there are always those that need the long discussion around the conference-room table — you still have a chance. And in that case, the competition in the regular-decision pool may actually be more favorable for you.”

For Saratoga seniors, deferrals from the first round of college admissions have been common. In fact, according to Ivywise, deferral rates have increased this year by over 5 percent, correlating with the increased application rates to Ivy League colleges.

“I think that it’s to be expected, especially seeing as students have taken to applying early to a lot of very exclusive schools,” guidance counselor Alinna Satake said. “A lot of our seniors were disappointed by their results, especially from the University of Michigan.”

Satake believes, however, that deferrals are far from the end of the world — as long as the student has  applied to a broad spectrum of colleges.

“Apply widely, that’s all I can say,” Satake said. “That way, you can find that acceptance and go to the school that’s a good fit for you.”