paying more than one admission fee

Parent Cafe
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<p>When financial or merit aid is on the line, I don’t see an issue in putting down that deposit. I have only heard of one situation where a school by May 1 did not have the package complete for a student. In that case, I would have had no hesitation telling a student to accept both schools.</p>

<p>Our school has many kids on waitlists. I’ve yet to hear of one kid at the school giving up a confirmed spot because he was accepted off another’s waitlist and another student at the same school getting the vacated spot because he was waitlisted at that school . It can happen, I understand, but it isn’t going to be a something works quite that way. There is not always a 1 to 1 correspondence on waitlists. THere is usually some flex built into the system. It is a heartening story to see two kids who know each other benefit from waitlist acceptances, but I don’t know of any personally.</p>

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<p>Is it generally the case that you will have a clear picture of each school’s financial offering by the end of April? Or do people sometimes have to wing decisions by May 1 without fully knowing about aid? I had assumed all financial aid decisions would be revealed by the end of April, but maybe I am wrong. Sorry if that is a newbie question but this is my first kid in these uncharted waters.</p>

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<p>Most of the time, you will have all of the information you need to make a decision by May 1. Your home issues may be unresolved, however. Or if you are negotiating your merit/aid package, that may not be resolved. You will not have been assigned to your dorm by then. Many times the reason multiple deposits are sent is simply because the kid can’t make up his mind and the deposits are buying time. </p>

<p>There are times when a student is accepted to a university but not to a program where an actual headcount is required. By sending in a deposit, he can be “waitlisted” for the program. If he does not get into the program, he may go to another school where he has also placed a deposit. If he does get into the program, he goes to the first school.</p>

<p>Another scenario is when a school says there is a chance that a student could get merit money that other students have declined. That can make the difference between going to a school and not. THe school may not be able to give out the money until they know who is coming that has been offered the awards. That would not be until after May 1. </p>

<p>There are a number of other scenarios that I have seen. But most of the time, you have what you need to make that decision by May 1.</p>

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<p>As with most answers, it depends. For many colleges, the housing fee is separate from the admissions fee, and there is no problem in paying that fee.
For at least one school that D applied to, they recommended paying the housing deposit, even before the application for admission was due.
( which we did, but she decided not to attend)</p>

<p>But by time to place tuition deposits comes around- if you haven’t made up your mind by that point, then when?</p>

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What would be some of the special circumstances where you would find it acceptable to send in two deposits?</p>

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<p>For the most part, you should know by April 1. Rare instances where declines from other students make additional aid available to your child.</p>

<p>When I enrolled in Graduate School, I was offered a scholarship. When I enrolled in the fall, they told me my scholarship had doubled because the other kid did not show up (divided the scholarship between two kids).</p>

<p>You might be able to game the process by withholding acceptance until the last minute. If you have already accepted, they have no incentive to increase your aid. But, if you have not, they might give you additional “freed up aid” as an additional incentive to attend.</p>

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<p>As a parent of a child who was strung along on a waitlist until mid-July, by which time it really was too late for her to emotionally and logistically make the transition to the school that finally thought she was good enough to select (or they finally had an opening for which she “fit”), it angers me to read about students and parents who just can’t make up their minds by the deadline every student in the country is asked to honor, May 1. This is the height of self-centeredness, in my opinion. There are always students waiting for the spot your student was offered and is too selfish, or rather self-focused to relinquish until it may be too late to benefit someone else. Get a grip and make a decision, and make it one that won’t potentially damage the prospects of someone else.</p>

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<p>I gave a couple of examples. One would be financial or merit aid that may or may not be available after May 1 when students have been offered money send in their acceptances. If there is some money left over, and it is offered to a student, that could make the difference. My son fell into that category this past year. </p>

<p>Another would be an acceptance into a school, but not a specific program, but the possibility of spots opening after May1. </p>

<p>Other reasons can be personal family issues that may not be resolved by May but could be over the summer.</p>

<p>I say this because I know some kids who got burned that way. They lost scholarships and their seats to schools when circumstances change, and they had made a decision on May 1 that was no longer wise. </p>

<p>As Sybbie and 1travlr have pointed out, there are ethical issues about doing this. They have given some good reasons why a student should not hold onto to multiple seats. However, if there if the needs of an individual trump those considerations, unless the college or high school has rules about this process, it is something that one can do. That is the fact of the matter.</p>

<p>When I applied to colleges more than 30 years ago, I got grumbles for applying to a handful of selective schools instead of the standard 1-3 schools that was the norm for my school those days. I was flat out told that I was going to be taking up seats that could have gone to others by applying to do many schools. Now the norm is applying to more schools than I did. </p>

<p>When I studied for SATs 30 years ago, I was told that you could not raise your score much by prepping and it was pretty much a waste of time other than a once over to familiarize myself with the test. Now test prep is not only advised, but pushed by the high school counselors.</p>

<p>When you applied ED in my day, it was considered catastrophic if you backed out. Now I see kids applying ED with no regard to the possiblility that the finances will not work out and they use that loophole to get out of ED. </p>

<p>It used to be that very few kids used college counselors. Now in the more competitive areas, it is becoming common place. </p>

<p>Things have changed over time. As said before, there is a summer melt figure built into the acceptances, so it is not aways true, not quite true that someone is taking up someone’s spot anymore than a top student who applies to multiple colleges and gets a number of offers. </p>

<p>On the other hand, to be prolonging the process to the very end is not beneficial to anyone many times. The May 1 deadline forces a decision that otherwise might be held off until the day the kid has to report to college. And indeed kids have held off that long.</p>

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<p>Not quite true. Admissions Offices practice Yield Management. They have statistics that tell them:</p>

<p>1) Of the kids that are offered admissions, what % will accept.
2) Of the kids that accept, what % will withdraw before the start of classes.
3) Of the kids that accept and do not withdraw, what % will not matriculate (not show up).
4) Of the kids that show up, what % will drop in the first few weeks of classes.</p>

<p>That’s why some of the larger universities have to house some kids for a week or two in the cafeteria until there is room in the dorms. </p>

<p>If you truly need time to make up your mind, you are taken into account in the numbers. That doesn’t excuse mere indecision. But, if you have a good reason (can we scrape together $30k/yr to send Johnny to Harvard vs. $10k/yr to the State University), you may or may not have taken a spot away from someone on the waitlist. You may just be one of the % they expected to drop.</p>

<p>Schools overestimate yields for the initial decisions (admit fewer kids than they could, assuming a normal year). It is better to have too few kids than too many. My Daughter’s freshmen year had more kids than normal. Their yields were too high, and declined kids that did not accept by the May 1 deadline. No kids were taken off the waitlist.</p>

<p>The only way Declines (or withdrawls) from students will affect waitlist is if they get more declines than they expected. If you are offered admissions off the waitlist way past the May 1 deadline, the Admissions Office could just as easily be seeing yield numbers in line with prior years, but didn’t want to risk overfilling the freshmen class until closer to the start of classes. Even if one of their stats is low (lower acceptance rate), they may wait a little while to see if that is not offset by another stat (lower withdrawl rate).</p>

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<p>Opera dad, my recollection is last year, schools were drilling down further on wait lists than they expected – and obviously, it cascades. I beleive, although have no data, that average number of applications per student has increased again this year, and the waitlist clearing will be even larger (in terms of numbers).</p>

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<p>My D is a sophomore this year. 2007 vs 2008 stats:</p>

<p>Applicants: 2,599 (2007) 2,618 (2008)
Admitted: 1,450 (2007), 1,539 (2008)
Matriculated: 376 (2007), 387 (2008)</p>

<p>It seems they admitted 90 more students to get the same class size. I don’t know the stats on how many of the Admitted students were offered admissions prior to May 1. I do know that in 2007, no one was admitted after May 1. It is possible they cut back on Admissions in 2008 (fewer offers prior to May 1), and then had to offer a lot more kids admissions off the waitlist after May 1.</p>