So my son was accepted to his ED2 school and withdrew all his other apps–or so he thought. Apparently he neglected to withdraw one, and he was just accepted to that school. How does he turn it down? Does he admit he forgot to withdraw his app, or does he simply say “no thanks”?
Simply say “no thanks”. If he does it early that frees up the spot for another kid. It’s nothing different than if he hadn’t been accepted to his ED2 school but got in somewhere else under regular admissions.
An ED agreement is a binding agreement that typically can be broken only if the financial aid offered by the ED school is insufficient to enable one to attend. If you did not apply for financial at the ED school & want to attend the second school, then you should contact the ED & discuss the situation in an open & honest manner.
While true, this is not what the OP is asking. The kid is looking to turn down a school other than the ED school. So as far as the non-ED school is concerned, simply saying “no, thanks” is sufficient.
How does he turn it down? Just like any other offer of a school, a job, a car purchase, most anything.
Simply say- no thanks, we’ve decided to go a different direction.
if they have some sort of online portal, just click, ‘Decline’.
Or, don’t submit your deposit.
Just decline ASAP via the portal if possible. Most schools really don’t care to know why if you’ve made a hard decision.
Bad move. That would conceivably keep the offer open until May 1. Also, depending on their yield, said college might start calling to say hello and generate some enthusiasm. Much better to make a proper declination now.
My D2 got admissions and rejections even after she withdrew her applications.
Many schools are clerically challenged.
Just turn it down so that they can go to their waiting list sooner if need be. Don’t give it a second thought.
I agree that not submitting a deposit to the school that you “accidentally” got accepted to is insufficient. First of all, it violates the ED agreement with the other school and if they were to find out (which they could) they could rescind the ED offer of admission. Secondly, your S would be tying up a spot that could be offered to another student from the WL.
Just have your S decline the offer of admission to the non-ED school. While he’s at it, he might want to check that all of the other applications have indeed been withdrawn and if any other offers of admission were to come in, he should decline them immediately.
It’s no different than declining offers when accepted to 9 different colleges RD. Just like the ED student, the RD admit can attend only one-- they just might be making that determination later in the process. But even if the RD student is undecided about their top 2 or 3 choices until the cusp of decision day on May 1, usually there are some that are dropped from the list early on, such as safety schools that the student would want to attend only if not admitted to any of their preferred schools.
You make your decision and then communicate “no thanks” the others. It can be as simple as sending an email.