Need help--can I withdraw an accepted offer?

<p>I just received a new offer from one of the school I wanted to go (I know, so late). </p>

<p>I've been waiting for them until 4-14 and had to accept another offer from a less-preferred school.</p>

<p>so my question now is---can I withdraw the earlier offer I accepted and accept this new offer?</p>

<p>Is this a common situation for you guys?<br>
How to approach this?</p>

<p>Please help, any comment is appreciated, thanks</p>

<p>Did you get a late funding offer or a late admission decision form the school you want to go to?..just curious.</p>

<p>If you accepted a funding offer at another school for a PhD program, and want to withdraw your acceptance that could be tricky, but I have no doubt it happens. If you accepted without funding and want to withdraw your acceptance, I doubt it will be a problem. If fact, withdrawing an acceptance with no funding offer happens regularly. Personally, if there is no funding involved, just contact the school officials.</p>

<p>If you look in the threads in the past few month I know this issue has been discussed with more expert responses than mine. I don’t know where the responses are though.</p>

<p>thanks jack, I agree funding situation plays a big role in this, let me clarify this a little.</p>

<p>The previous offer I accepted includes funding for a PhD program.
This new offer I just received also includes funding, and it’s also for a PhD program, it’s a long story (I’ve had their admission letter without funding for a long time, but I wouldn’t have gone there without funding)</p>

<p>you can do this, but realize your current school will be ****ed. they now effectively have lost a spot that could have gone to someone else, and might have other complications due to having secured funding for you. In the end, you have to weigh what’s best for you vs. how much you care about others.</p>

<p>I don’t totally agree with Blah2009 above. Sadly, Late(after April 15th) funding offers are common enough in PhD programs. They are part of the game. On one level these universities need to adapt to them. Also, you really may be doing everybody a favor by going to the PhD program where you believe you “fit” best and going into this program without regrets…even if that means backing out of an offer at another program. A PhD is going to be perhaps four or five years of your life. It is not to be taken lightly. </p>

<p>With all that being said, you won’t make the program where you are backing out from happy. You may or may not be messing them over. It depends what type of funding offer you have accepted with them. They may be able to give the line of funding to another PhD student or even a Masters student who will be extremely happy to recieve it(ie. I was a Masters student years ago who got a funding offer two weeks before my second year of school started).</p>

<p>Mr. Zoo, I would strongly recommend searching the department’s web site of the University that you want to back out of for their policy on this matter. I know that one of the programs I was accepted to had an official policy for backing out of funding offers on thier web site.</p>

<p>jack, thanks for your comments. I really like this second school, they’ve been working with me along the way. Reason I got this super-late offer is one of the professor want to work with was also waiting on a grand result.</p>

<p>I will look into detail about withdrawing offers. Thanks again.</p>

<p>I found this link from the Council of Graduate Schools. It is thier policy on withdrawing from admission and funding offers after April 15th. Also, it give the lists of schools that have signed onto the agreement. Basically, if you withdraw from a funding offer after April 15th, you must be released from that funding offer to be admitted by the school were you are accepting a late funding offer.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.cgsnet.org/portals/0/pdf/CGSResolutionMay2009.pdf[/url]”>http://www.cgsnet.org/portals/0/pdf/CGSResolutionMay2009.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Personally, I believe this is a bummer since funding offers regularly come late. I would wonder how often it is enforced. Anybody have any experiences with this?</p>

<p>The policy is basically that you can withdraw up until 4/15 without penalty - after that you have to be released from your offer. The good news is that most programs will immediately agree to release you if you ask - they don’t want a reluctant grad student for the next 5 years. The bad news is that they will probably not get a “high quality” student to fill your spot this late in the game, so they will probably get ****y about it. Your name will be Mudd with them for the forseeable future, and they may spread that around a little. Overall, the cost is not too big if it is really what you want to do.</p>