Our S sent a brief email to the admissions offices of the schools he opted to decline. For the two declines, schools that had been in the final running, he sent a little more info on where he’d opted to go and a main reason why. Some of the schools he was accepted to ‘went the extra mile’ in terms of their contact throughout the whole admissions cycle and it seemed appropriate to finish the job with an email stating his decision.
He got some VERY nice, personalized responses to his emails - which surprised us. Three schools made a point of saying that they’d be happy to hear from him in the future if his plans should change.
*Only one school had a place for a student to decline on the admissions portal. It made the process of writing a little more time consuming but I can understand that schools may be reluctant to put “Yes” and “No” options on the same portal for fear of human errors.
Yes, there have been panicked threads here where that happened.
@damon30 I believe it. I know that just hitting the “Yes” button is stressful - no matter how clear the directions are!
Sending a brief thank you email to the top other choices is nice. It might stand the student in good stead if they want to transfer later, too.
And admissions folks are human too. It never hurts to thank someone for doing their job in a nice way – whatever you think the future might hold.
My DD did this last year for one school that had awarded a good scholarship and they wrote her back offering the scholarship for the following year if she decided to transfer. I thought that was very classy of them!
@AboutTheSame - have to agree with you there. Some of the admissions counselors my S corresponded with were real winners. He also received a wonderful letter from a local alum from one prospective school who offered to answer any questions, etc. and who shared their reasons for recommending the school. Things like this made my son want to follow-up and let schools know his decision. He wrote to eleven and it took all of half an hour. Worth it.
Has anyone else received a letter from their “admission reader” congratulating them? Never met the person so it seemed really odd.