My daughter has been wait-listed at college A, which was her top choice, and accepted at college B, which was a close second.
She will have to accept College B and pay the deposit, because the College A waitlist decision isn’t going to happen before the acceptance deadline of College B
If she does get an offer from College A off the waitlist later, then what should she be doing ? We understand and accept that we will lose the deposit at College B. But is the act of signing on to College A and not joining at College B:
c). Although a note would be nice. This is commonplace and no malice is inferred. Indeed, College B may approach people on its WL and pull people away from other schools too.
There’s no need to inform College A about College B. College A assumes this and indeed instructs you to accept another school’s offer while waiting.
This happens all the time and colleges expect it. Absolutely no penal action and it is not bad form at all. It would be considered good form to write a note thanking College B for their offer of admissions and letting them know you will be enrolling elsewhere (your choice if you want to name college A or not). After all the time and effort that goes into the college admission process, IMO it is good for kids to close out the process in a gracious way.
One reason to write a nice note if she ends up not attending college B is that sometimes students want to transfer later on, and a school that already accepted her once can be a good target school for that. Leaving them on good terms helps keep that option open.
At some point they “close” the waitlist (they might use slightly varying terms). Usually late May to mid-June, you will hear that they are shutting down the waitlist and not making any more offers (essentially telling you that you are out of luck). Some schools might do that earlier than others (say those that overenrolled, and hope for summer melt to avoid a big housing crunch in the fall).