My son has received a healthy merit aid offer, including some as a result of the school’s scholarship competition, and is being told by admissions that he needs to go ahead and pay a (refundable) enrollment deposit to confirm his “acceptance” of the scholarship if he wants to keep it. I understand that there is no risk since the deposit is refundable until May 1, but is this common? Is it ethical? He has merit awards form other schools that don’t come with such a stipulation - he receives them as long as he submits a deposit by May 1. Curious to hear others thoughts and/or experiences on this subject.
Here is the ethical element as I see it. If your son turns down the scholarship by not sending in a deposit, the school will be able to offer it to someone else who may now be trying to figure out how to afford attending that school. By May 1, that student may well have to decide to attend a different college or no college.
My daughter had to turn down her first choice of school because she was not awarded the school’s competitive award (she was offered some merit money, but not the full tuition that the competition awarded). If the scholarship winners had turned down the offer and freed up the money for her (five competitors for three scholarships), she would have gone there in a heartbeat. Who knows how her life may have been different if she’d attended that school.
If your son thinks that there is a STRONG likelihood that he may attend that school, then I would send in the deposit. If he prefers one of the other schools and the offer is affordable, then I would lean toward letting the other schools know that he isn’t interested so that others could be offered those funds.
But that’s just me.
My sense is that the landscape is changing as students apply to ever increasing numbers of colleges.
One CC poster got a great merit award at my D’s first choice school–but it was one of 30 schools to which that applicant applied. Frustrating to me, because my D ended up receiving a much lower award and may not attend. I suspect colleges are starting to be concerned about losing students who really want to attend, to students who have no, or very little, intention of attending.
I think @KKmama is spot on. Send in the deposit if the school is, say, in your son’s top three.
I was listening to a seminar and was told that schools can ask for an early deposit, however, you can ask for an extension until the national May 1 deadline. They said that by law the school is required to grant the extension without fear of losing scholarship offer.
Thanks to all for the feedback. I guess I can see both sides of the coin, with regard to freeing up the money to offer other students before the May 1 date. Since the school is definitely one of his top three, we decided to go ahead and send in the deposit.
If the deposit is refundable and you request the refund when you commit to another school before May 1, I don’t see any issue. Basically, you are not accepting 2 admission offers at the same time.