If I accept an offer from a US college before the May 1st deadline, is my decision legally binding. In other words, do I need to attend the college to which I accept the offer?
Is the college going to force you to attend if you don’t want to go? No.
If you applied early decision and don’t go, you’ll succeed in getting your school blacklisted from now until the end of time - and shouldn’t have applied ED in the first place.
If you applied EA or RD, you can withdraw from a university at any time. You’ll probably lose your enrollment deposit, and if you fail to officially withdraw you may be on the hook for tuition no matter what, but you aren’t legally obligated to attend.
Best of all, don’t accept the offer unless you’re sure you’ll be attending, and you’ll avoid all the above issues.
No. But you will lose your deposit. Some people do withdraw after getting off a wl somewhere else.
Obviously it is not binding or most students cannot accept waitlist admission as they have already pay the deposit elsewhere.