Today I received a call today from a grad school offering me admission. The only problem is that I have a week to accept or lose my slot. I have not heard from any other grad schools yet and this school was not my first choice. Should I accept this offer? If I accept this offer and then get into my top choice, can I get out of accepting it? What happens if I do that? HELP
Is this a funded offer? Because there is a general agreement among many grad programs in the U.S. that students do not need to accept funded offers before April 15.
http://cgsnet.org/april-15-resolution
This is interesting (“weird” is probably a better word). A school can call you and tell you about their decision, but IMHO, an offer from a grad school is like a job offer. Until the offer is spelled out in writing, it doesn’t exist.
And they want you to make the decision within a week…
What is included in the offer? Stipend? TA/RA position? Tuition? Health/dental insurance?
How would you accept the offer? In writing? Over a phone call?
If nothing is in writing, what if someone changes something in the deal (they modify the offer or you change your mind)? Then it becomes their words against yours. It’s a lose-lose situation.
Tell them you need more time, say, 5 weeks, to consider the offer, and see what they have to say.
I haven’t received the official offer letter yet, so I’m not sure. I do think it may be funded from how it sounded on the phone
If your school is on the very long list of universities that belong to the Council of Graduate Schools, then you are able to accept the funded offer and later turn it down in writing before April 15. This applies only to funded offers.
The resolution and the list can be found at
http://cgsnet.org/ckfinder/userfiles/files/CGSResolution_Sept2016.pdf
To be clear, though, the CGS resolution only applies to offers of funding, not offers of admission. It’s a distinction that doesn’t matter at the majority of ethical schools that give you both at the same time and realize that decisions on one are dependent on decisions on the other, but there are a small number of programs that will be pedantic.
But yes, I’d just tell the program that you need more time to decide because you are waiting for responses from other schools.
If they refuse to give you additional time, or only give you a paltry amount, or don’t tell you about your financial award before they require a decision…in my personal opinion those are the kinds of programs that are practically begging for people to tell them yes only to pull out a week or so before April 15, and they deserve what they get. But you have to decide for yourself whether you’re willing to do that - you could burn a bridge.