In general, how open are schools to deferring your acceptance for a year? Will they consider the argument: “I want to attend your school and a year of work would make that financially possible for me”?
Your likelihood of getting a deferral varies by school (some schools are more likely to grant one than others), by your reason (yours is ok, but obviously something like “I need a year of chemo” would be really compelling), and by how early you request it.
<== deferred last year at Northwestern. Had a reason similar to yours, and requested it only a few weeks after I was accepted in January.
Gotcha. Since money is an issue I may also try negotiating with a couple schools… though I hear that doesn’t always work.