“Then you’ll suddenly find yourself saying goodbye in August.”
It’s definitely going to be hard for those whose first one is heading to college. We definitely need advise from parents like you who are experienced.
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More people should do this, especially when the parents and student know the others are not in the running. I wonder how common it is (or isn’t).
“Eye opening and a good education for when it’s my son’s turn.”
Can’t agree with you more on this. A big blow when it comes to admission decisions. Same here, Accepted/Deferred going on and off.
Yes, a very big blow in some cases, and it’s just terrible watching your child feeling crushed, even if everything works out in the end. In most cases, they move on and end up enjoying where they are. But as parents, I think we ruminate over it so much more – even after the kids have gotten over it.
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I’m trying to make potential travel plans to visit schools in April, and the one crazy weekend where there are 3-4 schools possibly having admitted student days (some known and some guessed based on when they were in the past) is exactly when senior prom is. 
I’m not having her miss prom. If she’s lucky to get into any of them, I don’t know how we’ll manage to visit them as they are all a several hour flight for us. Argh.
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no, further East 
Oooh, good point on suddenly having to say goodbye in August. I’m going to rethink the wait because of that.
We got two CSU acceptances in Oct and Dec. Now waiting for all remaining acceptances (CSU & UC) in March.
Unfortunately both schools he wants are in the March list. DS will wind up at one of the Cal Polys. SLO will make the decision on which one it is. So while I know he’ll wind up somewhere good for him and he’ll be happy, I’m still a bit anxious to know which school or will be. Having to wait for that is hard. At least once those two results come in, the decision will be immediate with no fretting or hand wringing about which one is the right decision. And then I can cancel some hotel reservations (I made reservations for hotels for all the important days for both SLO and CPP.)
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Do you think declining acceptances at this stage will help open up a slot for some other student ? This is my first kid going through this whole confusing college process so I might be wrong, but I was told that it won’t make any difference right now as it is factored in the colleges calculations.
My son has a few OOS EA acceptances, out of those two are at the top of his list, 1 deferral but he is losing interest slowly. Waiting on UCs to make our final choice. So I guess we’ll have to wait till March like most people.
He has a couple of super reaches too, not holding our breath for those.
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I don’t think declined acceptances will move the needle at this point. Schools expect a certain number of EA applicants to decline their offer. Once everything has shaken out (RD is complete) they will go to their waitlists if not enough students decide to enroll.
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I was referring to withdrawing a deferred application - not declining acceptances. The latter have been factored into the expected early round yield, the former have not.
If applicant A and B have both been deferred (or at schools where deferred applicants are treated the same as RD applicants, B is an RD applicant) and they have similar stats and profile such that the admission committee is able to only offer one of them an admit, it helps if A withdraws from consideration opening up a spot for B.
All application portals have a “Withdraw” option, and in the weeks leading up to decision date, many colleges will prominently display a message saying something like “if your plans have changed please withdraw your application”. The screenshot below is an example from UMich posted very prominently on their portal for about a week prior to the early acceptance decision date:
If withdrawals didn’t make a difference, colleges would not prompt applicants to withdraw.
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Got it. I definitely misunderstood. It makes sense that reducing the pool on the front end would impact what decisions are made.
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Selected for Candidates’ Weekend at Olin. Would love to chat with someone who also has or was in the past. Thank you.
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Unfortunately, it looks like there are many that don’t bother to withdraw. Either they just don’t take that step proactively, or they are what I call “trophy hunters” simply looking to rack up admits.
We have an example of the latter from my D’s school. He’s been admitted REA into Princeton (his top choice school) as well as a couple of other places. But he got deferred by two other OOS publics that are highly ranked for CS and engineering. He seems to be pretty upset with this and is bent on converting them to acceptances. He’s even sent in his LOCIs but openly admits that he plans to enroll at Princeton. His logic for pursuing these other colleges? He believes he should have been accepted (after all Princeton admitted him, right? 
) and wants to prove that they will.
Getting a whole bunch of acceptances outright is admirable and something an applicant should rightly be proud of. But clinging on to deferrals at colleges that are out of consideration simply for the sake of racking up acceptances isn’t admirable at all and is inconsiderate of other applicants.
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That stinks. There is no reason for that unless, for some reason, the REA choice becomes out of reach financially.
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Agreed. But in this kid’s case (we know the family) money definitely isn’t going to be an issue.
I respectfully disagree. ED is a commitment but EA is not. If a student puts the effort into an application and pays the application fee, they have every right to wait until May 1 to make their decision.
In the coming months, there will be a lot of in-person, as well as virtual, programs to help students make their decisions. Students have the right to evaluate the programs and change their mind on which school they will attend. There is no trophy given to the first to decline offers.
I would caution against putting too much value into hearsay or a presumption of what a family can afford. If one school offers significant aid over another, it is the family’s decision on how they want to spend their money.
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I agree with your points @lkg4answers - but I’m referring to colleges that have already been taken out of consideration because the applicant has decided to commit to another college. If the applicant and/or family are still evaluating colleges to make their decision then they absolutely have the right to wait and decide. I totally get that. But that’s not the scenario I’m talking about.
Again, I am not talking about declining offers - I’m talking about chasing deferrals at colleges you have no intention of enrolling at.
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Has the student already SIR’d? If not then they are still deciding.
what is SIR? Not up on the lingo.
Also, the student may have decided on Princeton, but the parents might still be hedging their bets and want to make sure.
There was a link in another CC forum to an article about this and for the life of me I can’t remember where the article was. I’d love to go back and read it, but the advice in the article as best I can recall it was to hang on to your acceptances and don’t rush to withdraw or decline. It doesn’t make any difference on the college’s end or for other students and just shortchanges you should circumstances change.
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Statement of Intent to Register. Officially committing to one school.
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