Good news

I just got an email from the UW. They say in all of their materials that they don't grant deferrals and so on Monday I sent them a letter thanking them for the offer of admission but explaining that it wasn't feasible for me to return to school as early as fall. I said that I was planning on re applying for fall 09. Today they let me know they were granting me a deferral of ADMISSION and I should let them know next fall if I'm interested and I'm in! This is exciting because Public Admin programs were recently re-ranked and UW jumped from like 30 to 15. When I saw that, my admission didn't feel as guaranteed in next year's applicant pool as I originally thought. But it is! I think the most amazing part of this is that someone actually read my letter and then made a decision based on my specific situation. It makes me feel about 10X more interested in UW, but I'll still apply to other programs for fall 09 anyway. Apparently, I'm hot shit!