<p>This is my first post here and I'd like to seek advice on the following matter. It is very important to me, so any feedback will be much appreciated.</p>
<p>I sent my request to withdraw my application from a college. I was not satisfied with what I wrote and could not leave it that way so I decided to withdraw. Due to other reasons and circumstances, I am taking a gap year so I do not necessarily have to apply this round.</p>
<p>However, I received a decision email and thus found it quite strange. I contacted the admission office but they said my request did not/has not yet reached them.</p>
<p>Some people may think this doesn't really matter since I am not enrolling in college this year anyway. Nevertheless, I feel very uncomfortable with the notion that my application will be among thousands of those kept by the admissions office, when I am unhappy with my application and intend to withdraw it in the first place.</p>
<p>Out of principle, I really hope they can proceed with the withdrawal.
How should I approach them? What is the best way to convince them?</p>
<p>I thought colleges keep all applications for a certain period?</p>
<p>If I decide not to apply to the aforementioned college after my gap year, I won’t like the idea of having something I already intend to withdraw to remain there. Especially when these things are very personal. I requested it to be removed because I am unhappy with it, but now it is left lying there. Don’t feel good. I guess it is just personality/principle.</p>
<p>If I were to apply to the same college again, I will similarly feel uncomfortable because what I wrote did not reflect my true self, and I’d prefer them to focus on the latest application that I believe in and like, without referring to the old one in their archive. Moreover, I also do not want to them to misunderstand anything, just in case they happen to think that the manner I present myself is too different compared to the previous time.</p>
<p>Call and ask them already what they do with withdrawn applications if you decide tonapply again. Ask specifically if they look at old applications. You can with draw, but does that mean they shred, delete, put in an archive file? Asknthem</p>
<p>^^No. I’m just anal retentive and idealistic about this sort of thing. Like how a chef realizes the dish is not up to his standard, and can’t go against his heart, and asks the waiter not to serve it. And when the waiter didn’t get the message an went ahead, he would rather apologize to take it back. Idiosyncrasy, ego, whatever you want to call it.</p>
<p>Even if you withdraw your app, the college will still keep it on file for quite some time… I don’t think that it is really that big of an issue. If you’re taking a gap year, does it really matter?</p>
<p>They won’t keep it on file for quite some time, it may be in cyber space, but don’t have the physical room to keep tens of thousands of applications laying around for years. Why would they?</p>
<p>If you apply to this school again, the file will likely be pulled as part of the review.
If you don’t apply to this school again, it will sit in a secure location and no one will look at it again until it is shredded or deleted, depending on the school.</p>