I wonder if some of you have experience with enrollment contracts for day schools being due before BS admissions are even announced. How have you dealt with that situation, especially if FA is sought/offered?
My DS had a full scholarship for the local day school, and had to be enrolled by January 30th. There was a nonrefundable enrollment fee, but we did what we had to do. We made sure the local school was aware that they were the backup (the scholarship was for scoring highest on the admittance test, so it wouldn’t have been offered to anyone else, anyway.) We had until June or July to withdraw, but again, since we wouldn’t have been paying tuition it really didn’t matter. Like I said, though, we just made them aware of the situation, that we needed to wait on acceptances and FA offers, and they seemed to understand.
I’ll be living this personally in about a month. I’ve resigned myself to asking the day school for an extension. If one is not offered I’ll be sending in the enrollment fee. Right now I think the day school is actually DS2 second choice overall, and his first choice is a long shot.
We had this happen. Because we couldn’t be sure if she would be accepted to any of the boarding schools, and the day school was a perfectly acceptable alternative, we accepted her spot there AND paid the deposit. We did not get that deposit back, but were willing to accept that cost so that we had as many options as possible. Your mileage may vary (obviously, I can’t know if you are able to “lose” that deposit money).
Also, as soon as we decided on which boarding school to attend, I notified the day school so that they could offer our spot to the next person on the waitlist. We didn’t feel it fair to keep that spot when others were waiting.
Thank you everyone for the responses. You have been very helpful. I just found what the deposit amount is at the day school, and we plan to do just as suggested: Ask for an extension but if none is offered, just pay the deposit and hope to lose it after M10!!
@Goatmama, if you lose the deposit, you may be able to ask them to characterize it as a donation, which is helpful for tax purposes.
@gardenstategal Oh great. Thanks for the tip!
Nice tip @gardenstategal!
We got an extension to complete re-enrollment last year, as they knew he was applying to boarding school. (They did the recommendations, after all!) I talked to the admission director and he granted me an extension until after we could make our decision. The school was very supportive, even though sorry to see him go.
^ Exact same scenario with DD last admissions cycle - day school extended re-enrollment until BS decisions were in and very supportive.