Deferring Admission to reapply for some PhD programs next year
Deferring admission is not an automatic privilege at most universities at the doctoral level. You will typically need to justify why you want the deferral, and explain what you would do with the time. For instance, a Fulbright fellowship or a "service payback" on a fellowship might be valid justifications to a deferral; applying to other grad schools most certainly is not. If you are found to be deferring at one school to apply to another, you may lose out on admission to both, as the first school may retract their offer, and the second would likely not want to accept someone who might try and hold out on them.