Many colleges and universities require a security deposit and down payment by May 1st. According to a recent article, this fee ranges normally between $250 and $500. For some reason, Georgetown University sets its deposit at an outrageous and rather arbitrary $900. After making this deposit this past spring, my daughter was accepted off of a different school’s waiting list on May 13th of this year, less than two weeks after the deposit date. She withdrew her acceptance to Georgetown on May 14th. Given the circumstances and the exceptionally high fee charged and the short two week period post-deposit, we attempted to negotiate having them keep half of the deposit. The admissions office did not budge. Moreover, the regional admissions officer failed to reply to my calls or emails about the matter. So, caveat emptor!
I think you see why it is so high. You are doing something they frown upon (rescinding acceptance) so they want to make it painful to accept and then withdraw.
lol. You don’t negotiate with someone who holds all the cards. The technical term for that is “begging for mercy.”
The OP apparently registered just to post this complaint, then never came back to the site.
^^ Isn’t that the way with a lot of “beware”-themed posts?
It is useful info to know and I am glad this person posted. It can be a deal breaker for some familes. $900 is a lot of money to forfeit. Though admissions officers do not like it when any of the accepted students rescind acceptances, the schools are in agreement that this is a perfectly honorable thing to do when clearing the wait list of a school one prefers. This is not playing any games or breaking any rules at all.
I know someone who was WLed at a school and due to ROTC issues had to go with the school that accepted him and move the ROTC award to that school. But even without that complication, forfeiting a deposit was a tough thing for this family, as they were on a really tight budget. Coming up with two deposits within a month was not easily doable for them. They simply did not have the money sitting there. And the amounts were no where near $900.
Perhaps a family in this situation could ask for some kind of fee waiver from the school that accepted the kid off the waiting list. They might be more merciful.
It’s also nice to know that the admissions director is only interested in the students when it’s a a direct duty. Says something about who is sitting in that chair, IMO.
It would be nice if that were the case, HUnt, but I’ve yet so see any fee waiver for a deposit unless some true hardship can be shown and the family absolutely could not pay it. It then goes into the "playing games’ zone, when the true agenda is to save the money for possible wait list schools and other opportunities. I was a bit taken aback with the reaction to this post, as it seems to me that this family was up front and not playing any games and sincerely were “all Georgetown” at the time they made the decision, and it was not until the WL clearance came that this issue hit them. Policies and fees like Georgetown’s are what get people ingenuous and playing games. Shame on you, Gerogetown!
I’m thinking they might ask the new college for help–perhaps refund the application fee or something like that.
This is definitely good information to have. On the other hand, I find it hard to be sympathetic. After all, clearly the decision was not that difficult to make. We can presume that the other school was better (e.g. Yale, Princeton) or offered better financial aid. In other words, the family probably felt no real pain; just a bad taste in the mouth.