<p>There are kids who hold multiple spots beyond the May1 date. They put down mulitiple deposits because they cannot make up their minds. It puts those counselors who have personal interactions with college admissions folks in a dicey situation as Sybbie very clearly illustrates.</p>
<p>Again, I stress there are moral issues involved here. I know a kid who just could not make up his mind between NYU and UChicago. So the parents paid two deposits, and gave him the summer to make up his mind. They were buying time for their kids’ inability to make a decision.</p>
<p>However, sometimes there are reasons to delay a decision beyond May 1. In my experience, the colleges and counselors are not at all sympathetic to most of these reasons and will not grant extensions if you bring up the issue. I have seen this. I know about a half dozen kids who were burned because they made a decision by the deadline and some events occurred a month or so afterwards that made the choice a bad one. And they knew this could be the case, brought up the issues to the appropriate folks, and were told, “them’s the breaks”. If they had simply sent in two deposits, and waited out the situation, they would have been much, much better served. There are a number of situations where this can occur, and I would not hesitate to tell such kids to send in multiple deposits because there is a definite chance that bringing up the issue will not result in counselors and admissions offices being supportive.</p>
<p>Some colleges have not separated their housing deposits from their admissions response and deposit. In fact, a number of schools assign housing in the order the acceptance commitments and deposits are received. You risk having your kid live in the least desirable situations, tripling or in a hotel or in barracks by not sending in the deposit early. Not just by May 1, but ASAP. I’ve been burned twice with this. Both times my kids ended up living over a mile from campus with irregular shuttles in an area where the winters are brutal. In both cases, the housing deposits were intermingled with the acceptance deposits. In addition, in one case, my freshman did not get a room assignment at all until a week or so before school started because so many kids send in deposits that do not show up. As the summer procedes, some of those kids become part of the summer melt and let the college know they are not coming in return to some portion of the deposit returned. Others simply do not show up in September. Those numbers are built into the yields that the colleges project. The housing officer was able to tell me that they were reasonably certain that my son would get a room before the end of the summer. They knew there were phantom deposits in the bunch and a pretty good idea about how many there were.</p>
<p>I think it is up to the colleges to monitor this situation. You can find your kid at disadvantage by following their rules. If colleges really felt this was important, they could increase the deposit tremedously with no refunds, require students to sign a commitment to the schools, send around an accepted student list to other schools with the same problems. Some schools have already implemented the first two scenarios. Most state schools will tell you they don’t care if you send in multiple deposits, and in fact, you had better if you want decent housing.</p>