To Withdraw or Not to Withdraw - That is the question

Applying to College
1

<p>Hey guys, so I was recently matched with Stanford University through QuestBridge. I also submitted applications to MIT, Yale, Princeton, UPenn, and the University of Florida. Of course, I am very happy I was admitted to Stanford with almost a full ride, but as I am a Florida resident, you know, my mom would prefer if I stayed closer to the East Coast. Don't get me wrong; she's very excited, and she would happily let me go to Stanford. So here's my question.</p>

<p>Should I withdraw my applications to those 5 other schools, or not? At this point, I have realized that even if I do get accepted to MIT (which was my top choice some time ago) with a good amount of financial aid, I would most probably prefer to go to Stanford. Deep inside, I already feel like a Cardinal. But like I said before, there's always that home-proximity factor I need to take into consideration (or not!). I'm sorry if I'm being very contradictory, but anyways, if I don't withdraw my applications to those 5 universities and am accepted to any of them, would I be taking away a potential student's spot, or does my acceptance not influence others' acceptances? And how much should I take that "home-proximity" factor into consideration?</p>

<p>Hopefully this makes some sense. Thanks for your responses!</p>

2

<p>That is a sweet match. And non binding so you can wait for the other results if you like. All colleges admit more than they have slots for because not everyone accepts the offer. I guess you’d just like to accept now and it will be an easier decision? Tell you mom any school is going to be a plane ride so a couple hours more or less on a plane doesn’t really make much difference. You will have SJC and SFO right at hand.</p>

<p>Oh, my daughter really enjoyed getting to experience the opposite coast, West to East in this case.</p>

3

<p>I was admitted to stanford through the match as well and stanford was my top choice. I am almost 100% sure I will be attending Stanford but I would like to visit it first! Have you gotten any emails or mail from Stanford since getting the match? I saw that I was accepted through the Questbridge site but I have not gotten any direct emails from Stanford in about a month.</p>

4

<p>BrownParent, thanks for your response! There is also a 3-hour time difference, which is OK, I guess. Yes, it would be great to accept now; I guess I just have to wait until I receive more information directly from Stanford. And I’m glad you and your daughter enjoyed her experience at the other side of the country!</p>

<p>and 3hundra, I have also not received any info from Stanford!! I was asking myself that same thing. I’ve become friends on Facebook with a couple other students who were matched with Stanford (we met through the QuestBridge Finalists FB group) and they too haven’t received any mail/emails from Stanford. I think we should be receiving stuff in mid-December. We’ll see. I’m sure they haven’t forgotten about us! (hopefully) ;)</p>

5

<p>MIT is still pretty dang far from Florida…</p>

6

<p>You don’t have to decide now and it will not adversely affect other applicants. Give yourself some time for everything to sink in, gather all of the information, consider all of the pros and cons and make a decision in April. This is a big decision, there’s no reason to rush it.</p>

7

<p>MIT to Florida and Stanford to Florida are pretty much the same thing, you aren’t going to drive either one, and a weekend home is pretty much out due to the time to travel. But once you get past 1st semester, it becomes irrelevant - campus is home whether that’s in Cambridge or Palo Alto. MIT is awesome, but Stanford has one of the prettiest campuses imaginable and the weather is way better in February.</p>

<p>If they don’t require a reply, then wait. No harm in seeing if you have more choices - but that Stanford offer is going to be awfully hard to beat. Congrats.</p>

8

<p>Jocamaneiro, congratulations! That’s a fantastic opportunity, even if nothing else materializes.</p>

<p>I think there are a couple of things that you should weigh when considering MIT and Stanford. I’ll disclose that I have a personal bias–I don’t like California, and I do like Cambridge, Mass.–but I don’t think it’s a big issue in this discussion.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>I don’t think a 3-hour time difference is nothing. My mother lived in California for the last 13 years of her life; I live on the East Coast. It was inconvenient trying to call her. I often had time in the morning, but it was only 6:00 a.m. in San Francisco; she often had time in the evening, but it was already after 11:00 p.m. in the east. Now, it’s only an inconvenience–not a stopper–but I don’t think it’s nothing.</p></li>
<li><p>If you’ve lived in Florida all your life, you need to know several things about winter in Cambridge, Mass.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>A. It’s long. It’s gets cold in November. My freshman year in college (I didn’t go to MIT, but I did go to Harvard), we had a foot of snow the first week of April, and a white Easter.</p>

<p>B. It’s wet. It isn’t really snow that’s the problem. It’s ankle-deep slush on the sidewalks and in the gutters. And it’s literally dozens of days each winter when it’s 33 or 34 degrees, raining hard, and blowing a nor’easter, so that the rain comes at you diagonally and comes in under your umbrella.</p>

<p>C. It’s dark. Boston is not only far north of Florida, so that there’s measurably (and palpably) less sunlight during the winter, but it’s also significantly farther east in the time zone. (Really, look at a map. Miami is about as far west as Buffalo, which is considerably west of Boston.) This means it gets dark in Boston before it gets dark in Buffalo or Cleveland or Detroit or other eastern cities of similar latitude. I remember going into labs on winter afternoons at 1:30. When I’d come out 3 hours later, it was night. Not dusk, not twilight, but night.</p>

<p>But the others are right: you have plenty of time to mull this over. And, really, it sounds as if you’ll never have to choose an option that’s anything less than exciting. How great is that?</p>