<p>What do you do if you are accepted to one school that requires your decision before you have admission decisions from the other schools you applied to? </p>
<p>I have one(possibly three, I haven't heard from the others) school that requires a May 1 response. </p>
<p>The other schools I applied to mail admission decisions "prior to May 15" . </p>
<p>Any thoughts, personal experiences with a similar problem, general advice, etc. would be greatly appreciated! </p>
<p>= - )</p>
<p>PS. I am an transfer/nontraditional student.</p>
<p>Wow, that’s extraordinarily difficult. While I don’t have a remedy for this situation, I think it depends which schools you are most invested in. If there is a school that you love that requires a response by may 1st, then i would submit your deposit there. It’s not ideal, but if you end up getting into another school later that you love more, you can make another deposit and lose the first one. That’s what I would do-- pick a school out of the ones that are due in may, knowing you can always change your mind if you’re really set on another school- you would just lose that first deposit. In this situation, I don’t know if there’s another option.</p>
<p>I thought all schools had to mail out letters of admission by April 1, with your decision of attendance due back to the school by May 1. Is this not true?</p>
<p>Transfers like you rather than freshman can face this situation because for transfers some colleges can require a response before others might even give a transfer decision. Usually, the solution is to accept the offer at the earlier one and then withdraw it if you get admitted to the later one and choose to go there. Unless the college expressly says otherwise it is not improper to accept admission at one college and then withdraw your acceptenace if later admitted elsewhere, although you may lose any deposit that the first college required (most don’t or require only a small sum for acceptance of admission, but you do not want to apply for housing until you are sure where you are going because a deposit for it is often forfeited if you decide to withdraw your acceptance). This happens at the freshman level all the time for students waitlisted at the college they truly want to go to but don’t get admitted off the waitlist until sometime in May.</p>
<p>I’m sort of working with limited financial means, so forfeiting a $300+ deposit isn’t my ideal option (though if push comes to shove, of course I’ll figure it out) </p>
<p>Is it acceptable to call/write to schools asking for an extension on the deadline? </p>
<p>What about calling schools to see if a decision could be available earlier? </p>
<p>I was wondering if anyone had faced a similar problem, and how they handled it?</p>