"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.