@Cof22mom I have know 4 students with the GT offer from a couple of different schools and all thought they would use the option but never did. All settled in to the school they went to, made friends, and never took the transfer.
I have read somewhere on cc, I think it was here, that Cornell has also offered a GT after the kid was waitlisted and the WL was closed they toss a GT offer to some.
The whole thing is an unfortunate way to drag this process out.
No, you don’t have to accept it but it stinks none the less and is more like a high stakes mind game. To what end are they dragging these kids along? If someone really wants to attend a school they can transfer through regular channels for transferring at the end of the year.
There needs to be an end in sight of this process each year and that end should be the first week in May. They know the class size by the end of the day on the 1st period. If you are going into June with your back up plan then you clearly need to take a long hard look at the way you do things next year but let this class go and be 100% in to where they planted themselves on the 1st of May. JMO