Double Depositing

Applying to College
61

<p>D’s college asks for the $500 deposit ASAP. Your deposit date determines your place in the housing picks, AND in selecting courses for 1st semester freshman year. You also have to pay the deposit if you want to attend one of their 2 spring orientation days (which were very helpful and extremely well run). </p>

<p>BUT… the deposit is 100% REFUNDABLE until May 1st. Then it’s 50% refundable until June 1st. This is the only college I know of that does that. You can even pay, attend the 2 day orientation, and then change your mind and still get your money back.</p>

<p>As a friend said upon hearing that, “They must be pretty convinced people aren’t going to change their mind.”</p>

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<p>@Newmassdad
I second your post! You read my mind!</p>

63

<p>To answer the comment "…But my kid is not a member. Neither am I. So if my kid were to double deposit with a check signed by me, neither of us would be violating any ethical, moral or legal code as near as I can see. " directly… If the college has made clear any requirement for not making multiple deposits, then there would be a violation of ethical and contractual code.</p>

64

<p>Yes ;students do “double deposit” and there is a term " SUMMER MELT’ which is: summer melt n. a" reduction in the number of students who enroll at a specific college or university in the autumn, as compared to those who earlier in the year confirmed they would attend".</p>

<p>Odd as it may sound ;students double deposit at Graduate schools also>
[Smallest</a> “summer melt” at Chicago Booth results in the largest enrolment in the school’s history - Al Bawaba | Encyclopedia.com](<a href=“http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-20814401.html]Smallest”>http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-20814401.html)</p>

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<p>hmm but we’re all forgetting the waitlist… students who go off the waitlists are ultimately double depositing…</p>

66

<p>If no one were going to ever double deposit, regardless of the amount, then there would be no point of having a deposit system at all. I feel that paying a deposit is reserving a spot. If you want to reserve 10 spots, the price you pay is a loss of 9 of those deposits. Unless the people running those colleges are just stupid (and I assume they aren’t because they’re running a college), they have no reason to complain about someone double depositing. This has nothing to do with ethics, these are all contractual agreements, you don’t care about how the college feels that you’ve decided not to attend, and the college doesn’t care that you just lost $200 or $300 or whatever the deposit was. Unless you all feel bad when you cancel your cable or phone service, I don’t see why you should feel bad about double depositing.</p>

<p>And if we’re worried about wait-listed kids, then I’d like do say the double depositor didn’t wait-list that kid, the college did. Look at the people running the admissions who can’t accurately enough predict the number of people who deposit and will not attend and/or the people who can’t create enough flexibility to get kids off the wait-list as kids decide not to enroll, or the kid himself who simply wasn’t quite good enough to get admitted.</p>

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<p>Did you all miss this
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</p>

<p>It is part of Common Application signature, student agrees not to do multiple deposit.</p>

68

<p>QwertyKey,
You are rationalizing your self-serving ‘ethics’. Notice that the college does not say “reserve a binding on us, but not on you spot with a non-refundable deposit by May 1.”</p>

<p>Are you ok with an arrangement whereby a college returns a deposit, and reverses enrollment because a better student came along ?</p>

<p>Try to live, or at least think, by the Golden Rule, which says something like “do to others as you want done to you.” You will avoid ethical stupidity. You will also avoid an arms race, whereby colleges increase deposit fees up to the cost of tuition to prevent people like you from gaming the financial grace period that many honest students use while waiting for aid money to show up.</p>

69

<p>“Are you ok with an arrangement whereby a college returns a deposit, and reverses enrollment because a better student came along ?”</p>

<p>Don’t colleges already do this? They rescind admissions from students who weren’t as “good” as they thought, and give it to a student who was better than they thought. Michigan does this at least, though not to as many people as they could, they do it. </p>

<p>Even so though, I just don’t see how this is an ethical issue. The college provides a service, the student is a customer. The relation is one based on a contract, anything the contract doesn’t strictly forbid (and the common ap doesn’t strictly forbid double depositing, it warns students that colleges can rescind admissions for double depositing, and the student takes that risk) should be fair to do. If we’re supposed to “do to others as you want done to you” then they should get rid of the contract. The fact that they have a contract already implies they don’t trust me, and I know I’m never going to get in there without a contract, so why bother trying to get them to trust me to “do unto others as I wish done unto myself”, they never will. </p>

<p>I don’t go to Taco Bell expecting that they owe me any sort of moral consideration (maybe I’m hungry and have no money, are they supposed to give me free food) and they don’t expect any from me (maybe they’re going out of business soon and I happen to have a 50K needed to keep them in business that I can give them, am I supposed to do it), so I don’t see why a college is any different.</p>

<p>“It is part of Common Application signature, student agrees not to do multiple deposit.”</p>

<p>I don’t know if this really even exists any more, but what about people who don’t apply through common ap? (I didn’t).</p>

70

<p>Qwerty, the only real excuse for double-depositing is WaitList acceptances, and that’s not really a double-deposit. That’s forfeiting a deposit at one school when you send in a deposit to a school that didn’t previously accept you, but now pulls you off the waitlist. Frankly, waitlist acceptances are an extremely small percentage of kids attending college.</p>

<p>The other possible reason would be incomplete FA data. </p>

<p>And colleges don’t rescind students because a better student comes along. They rescind a very very small number of students because they didn’t live up to the academic (or behavioral) standards that got them accepted in the first place.</p>

<p>Your reasoning on the Common App is specious. If it warns you that your spot might be removed if you double-deposit, that means you are NOT supposed to do it. That’s like saying the fine you pay for speeding doesn’t mean that speeding is against the law. That makes no sense.</p>

<p>Colleges are not “businesses.” They are non-profit institutions (except for a very few proprietary schools). If you send them a deposit, they expect to receive payment for someone to live in their dorm and take their classes. There are always exceptional circumstances, but if everyone multiple-deposited the result would be utter chaos. Colleges would have no idea if they have way too many students, or way too few, until classes actually start in the fall, and then it’s way too late to plan for the correct number of rooms, professors, etc.</p>

71

<p>Why don’t we all report to the governemnt where we are all attending, rather than just the schools. That way, they can track who is double depositing and get the rescinded from both. one month span between April and May is definitely enough to visit your schools. You should not be applying to 20 schools and visiting 10 as soon as you hear on April 1. I am already decided and weighed my several options and found my best fit. It is not that difficult at all. I hope that double depositing gets somebody on this board rescinded and be forced in CC.</p>

72

<p>

This is something they just added in 2009-2010. It wasn’t there before. I guess they added it to make sure there is no ambiguity any more. By using the common application you have now agreed to not do multiple deposits.</p>

73

<p>I think it depends on the school. I suspect a lot of the anxiety here about double-depositing centers around Ivy’s and other top private schools. </p>

<p>My D did not use the common app and we never read anything about double depositing at large public’s being inappropriate or wrong. I think it is wrong that some schools hold things like orientation dates and housing preference over people’s heads to force this double-depositing behavior. They are saying, you want a place in line without obligation, then pay up, and you will get preferential treatment. This gives an unfair advantage to those who can afford to lose a deposit. But the schools do not seem to have a problem with behavior, and in fact their policies sometimes encourage it, while doing nothing to discourage it. </p>

<p>The simple solution is to say that students can only have one deposit on file at a time, and all deposits by May 1 are treated equally for orientation and housing. </p>

<p>I think schools encourage early deposits with levers like orientation is to measure the yield early…seems especially common in rolling admission schools.</p>

74

<p>“… if everyone multiple-deposited the result would be utter chaos.”</p>

<p>Only if it happened all at once, from one year to the next. But if the practice slowly trended up, schools would adjust their yield calculations accordingly, and might increase deposit amounts to try to discourage the practice. So few do it now that it doesn’t seem to be a practical problem, as distasteful as it is.</p>

75

<p>Schools already exercise waiting lists to prevent over enrolling, so double depositing would force schools into accepting even LESS students, making it even MORE difficult for students in the long run, especially those who WOULD have gotten in had someone NOT double deposited somewhere. Schools that waitlist have enough problems dealing with it, since most schools use the waitlist system. Factor in double depositing and maybe YOU won’t be the one getting in, thus having less options.</p>

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<p>^ No, too much double depositing would result in schools’ accepting more, not fewer students, because the yield goes down.</p>

77

<p>"Why don’t we all report to the governemnt where we are all attending, rather than just the schools. That way, they can track who is double depositing and get the rescinded from both. "</p>

<p>Not a government issue. There are reasons why we don’t create lists of all the Jews in the country either. Even if this were a government issue (which is absolutely isn’t) what would the government do? What about kids who double deposit to a school in the country and a school out of the country?</p>

<p>“And colleges don’t rescind students because a better student comes along. They rescind a very very small number of students because they didn’t live up to the academic (or behavioral) standards that got them accepted in the first place.”</p>

<p>You say tomato, I say tomato. Doesn’t really work when I type it but you get it. We’re each putting our own bias on it, but we’re talking about the same thing. I’m not trying to claim that there’s anything wrong with it, but they do it. </p>

<p>“Your reasoning on the Common App is specious. If it warns you that your spot might be removed if you double-deposit, that means you are NOT supposed to do it. That’s like saying the fine you pay for speeding doesn’t mean that speeding is against the law. That makes no sense.”</p>

<p>I think it’s analogous to saying that it’s not bad to speed, not that it’s not illegal to speed. It clearly is illegal, but it isn’t clearly “bad.” I do take your point but I still see one key difference, when you speed society is negatively affected (supposedly), everyone is negatively impacted. When you double deposit, a business is negatively affected. Businesses are negatively affected all the time, and a lot of times we consider it good. </p>

<p>“Colleges are not “businesses.” They are non-profit institutions.”</p>

<p>Just because they aren’t paying out dividends doesn’t mean they’re not trying to obtain as much money as they can. And I wouldn’t believe for a second that there’s no embezzlement out of them, or that there aren’t frivolous expenditures on the people running the colleges out of their college’s coffers. </p>

<p>“If you send them a deposit, they expect to receive payment for someone to live in their dorm and take their classes. There are always exceptional circumstances, but if everyone multiple-deposited the result would be utter chaos. Colleges would have no idea if they have way too many students, or way too few, until classes actually start in the fall, and then it’s way too late to plan for the correct number of rooms, professors, etc.”</p>

<p>Some people needed to take some more math classes then. Risk management or something like that. All other businesses figure out how to deal with uncertainty, colleges need to do the same (and that should be easy since they actually teach these classes). And if everyone is double depositing at a particular college, their deposit is WAY too low.</p>

<p>But as it was said before, this really isn’t a major problem. Colleges do factor this into their admissions. They can reasonably accurately predict it, and when they’re off a little bit, they can take care of it.</p>

78

<p>oldfort,</p>

<p>(and others!). If you are comfortable that the ambiguous language in the common app (“jeopardizes”?) is an unambiguous statement equal to “don’t do it”, then you are entitled to feel you have moral high ground, but only for yourself. You have no right to impose your interpretation of such a wishy washy ambiguous statement on others. </p>

<p>I realize it is tough to accept that something we all though existed (that is to say a contractual obligation, moral statement and such) from NACAC is like Santa Claus, but as I’ve shown, the NACAC code is for our kids advisors, not for us or our kids. </p>

<p>So enough of this moralistic discussion. I will concede that you can feel bound by such a code if you want. But it is clear that such binding is your personal decision. Nothing in print or on the web is anywhere near as strong as you say, and certainly not anything remotely like the author thought in the link of the OP. </p>

<p>Carolyn battled this issue extensively a few years back, and it is interesting (at least to me!) that no live example of anyone being penalized has surfaced then or now. (If I missed that example, please show me.)</p>

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<p>newmassdad - read what your kid agreed to by signing the common application. It has nothing to do with NACAC. It is a contractual agreement your kid signed. There is nothing moralistic about it. Open the 2009-2010 common application. It is a new agreement. Oh, you are going to court and say, “but I didn’t know what I signed.”</p>

80

<p>2009-2010 common application, the Signature Page:</p>

<p>“I acknowledge that I have reviewed the application instructions for each college…I also affirm that I will send an enrollment deposit to only one institution; sending multiple deposits may result in the withdrawal of my admission offers from all institutions.”</p>

<p>Signature___________________</p>

<p>This is an agreement between an applicant and the school(s), not between GC/schools.</p>