@JD7777 look closely at the housing contract she signed, when paying deposit…guarantee it stipulates how & when contract needed to be cancelled, to avoid fines.
At Texas A&M, it is a binding contract. It is clearly stated in the Housing deposit contract and on ResLife pages.
You are confusing enrollment deposits and housing deposits. Two different things. Many big state schools want seniors to put housing deposits in from August of senior year through the spring. Then by May 1 the student makes enrollment deposit and withdraws from other schools. This is a HUGE moneymaker for colleges who get housing deposits from thousands of kids who end up enrolling elsewhere.
This practice has been going on for decades - we did it for UK in the mid 80’s even though I had practically no intention of going there.
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I quickly scanned this thread and don’t see anyone else asking this question.
How old was your daughter when she signed the contract? If she was under 18, then it may not be a valid contract as she was still a minor.
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Good point, BUT if student weren’t 18, a parent would’ve been required to co-sign contract.
It becomes legally binding.
This is depositing for housing, not for admissions. A lot of schools require a housing deposit before they even admit you, if you want to be assured of decent housing if you are eventually admitted.
If the school requires a housing deposit before they admit you, then of course families are going to do that if they can afford to lose the deposit. The schools practically require it.
And if it is pre-admission, then the student doesn’t know which schools will say yes.
When they decline any admission offers, then those housing reservations are freed up for others. The OP thought they had declined the housing offer along with the admission offer at this school. They made a mistake, that’s all.
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My daughter was 17 when she started college. She was asked to sign a housing contract and I was standing right next to her. I told the person asking her to sign that she couldn’t sign as she was only 17. I was told by that person, that since she was the one who was going to live in the dorm that she HAD to be the one to sign the contract. I just smiled and let her sign. Of course, there was no problem with us not honoring that contract but the person from the college was just oblivious.
I may have missed it, but I did recall seeing anywhere in the thread that the parents ever signed the contract. The daughter may be 18 and so my point may be moot.
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Interesting! My daughter wasn’t 18 yet when she paid Texas A&M Housing deposit. It was a 2 part deposit/contract-she had to sign digitally, send me (a parent) a link to read/sign, then she could submit. It wasn’t a done deal until I signed/submitted.
Every school does it slightly differently, but the cancellation process/deadlines/ramifications should be clearly stated in each contract.
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Thank you all for clarifying that housing and enrollment deposits are not the same thing. I didn’t realize that you could pay a housing deposit before being accepted at a school. That does seem odd. I would think a housing deposit goes hand in hand with an enrollment deposit. Frustrating how every school is different.
This is also why a second set of eyes reading everything is important. While it is good to encourage a kid to be proactive and handle the process on their own, adult guidance can be critical to ensuring expensive mistakes aren’t made. I wonder if the fact that her scholarship would have covered 100% housing also put her in a different “category”… meaning she had to not accept that also?
THIS! We also put multiple housing deposits down. We knew they were not refundable…the schools get a fair amount of money from these non-refundable deposits. But we wanted our kid in the housing queue early enough to guarantee the kid would have housing…and at some colleges…a deposit for housing was needed.
How much was the housing deposit? Is the non-refundable deposit included in that $900?
When did this student let admissions know that they would not be enrolling? On April 30, or well before?
And I’ll add…if the school cancelled her school email address…they should have known she wasn’t enrolling.
I’d go UP the chain of command.
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I thought the same thing 
but then the OP, in one of her posts, mentioned her daughter was 18.
Thumper,
Thanks. She didn’t have to pay the housing deposit because her housing scholarship covered all housing costs. So she filled out the application (which the school calls the contract, she believed it to be an application) and then waited to determine if this was her school and if she could afford it. The 900 dollars is simply a “no show” penalty they assessed because she didn’t specifically tell Housing she wasn’t attending. All parties agree that she notified the school she wasn’t attending and sent in the paperwork to decline her scholarship.
Therefore she declined admission and housing scholarship - it should be fairly clear cut for the University.
Do (have her) check her email to see what emails they’ve sent her at the email address she’d provided as a contact.
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She may be contractually obligated even though this seems to be a very honest mistake – as evidenced by the fact that the same process worked at 4 other schools.
I would first get the facts – carefully review what was signed and check e-mail accounts where communications may have been piling up, unread. If these indicate you have to pay, you’re going to have to plead for forgiveness.
You could try calling both housing and admissions (and maybe the scholarship office as well) to let them know what happened, to provide them with the communication your D sent, to let them know it worked elsewhere, and to beg for kindness. You’re going to need to demonstrate that you did what you thought was the right thing AND that you are contrite.
It’s lousy that you thought you’d done the right thing but that legally, you have an obligation still.
One thing to look at carefully- sometimes those higher fees are charged only if they can’t fill the spot, whereas the lower fees ( $100-$200) are administrative. If there are no vacancies in the housing she chose, it’s possible that their claim is invalid or overstated.
If you do have to pay, you may want to post your own warnings on the social media. This is a bad place to start - I’dlook for human intervenefirst), but ultimately, it could be a bad look for the school and they’ll help you out.
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@JD7777 have you reviewed the application/contract your daughter signed? Go to ResLife/Housing website and dig around there. You can even Google it.
More than likely there was an additional step to cancel specifically with Housing, not just cancel scholarship. This is fairly common, unfortunately.
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Although if OPs daughter didn’t deposit and only filled out an application/contract then cancelled the scholarship that would have paid the deposit, it means no deposit was ever paid so I’m not sure how Housing counted her as enrolled with deposit and coming?
Can you clear that up?
I would post a warning on social media and on this university’ specific forum on CC regardless since it sounds like it was a scholarship-related issue.
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This is the cancellation/termination policy at Texas A&M. It is substantial, if not canceled correctly, on time/by the deadlines. There is zero wiggle room.
Quick google search took me straight to it, found on their ResLife page. It was on the Housing application also.
I’ve heard of other big schools that do this also.
there isn’t enough space for all incoming freshman, there is always temp/overflow housing AND a long Wait List…with hundreds of students who never make it off the list
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Sorry @SouthYankie - I was trying to hit the thumbs up in agreement with you. Fumble fingers hit the wrong emoji and it won’t let me fix
We put in multiple very early housing deposits as well. In our case we knew he was admitted but were waiting for competitive scholarship results to decide which school. As soon as we knew one was out of the running we did whatever the contract said to do. Some were just to tell admissions, some were to tell both admissions and housing. It was a mix. Most even gave us the deposit back. Some gave 50% of the deposit back and one kept the deposit. None of that was a surprise but we did read every contract that he signed to make sure we were following the process. By March we had every one but the one he was attending cancelled. I think the key lesson learned from this post is to read every contract carefully and make sure you are doing the right thing to avoid fines. If the OPs student signed, and it was clearly stated in the contract they needed to contact housing then the fine is owed and should be paid.
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Has OP revealed the name of the school in question ?
Without this crucial information, any proffered advice is little more than a guess.
OP: Likely that you are not alone regarding this situation with this specific school.
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I’d check and see what’s being said about this on Reddit because it’s very possible this is an issue with many people
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