Now that many students are getting some of their acceptances, some schools remain high on the list, while others may fall off of the list. It is hard, when you’ve just built your list to create options, to give up some of those options!
Is it typical to wait until you have all of your responses in, or do most students let the schools know fairly quickly once a school falls off the list? I don’t know if anyone is wait listed at this point, and waiting for spots to open.
Once decided, do we just email the schools?
I wonder how many students don’t notify schools that they are no longer interested, since it isn’t always clear how that might be done.
Most of the schools to which my D has been admitted inlcuded reply cards or have links on the portals. Haven’t figured out when to respond since she won’t have all of her decisions until the end of March. I’m feeling like we should keep all of our options open until then. I figure the colleges should have a pretty good idea about their yield, so I’m not worried about holding a spot. We plan to attend some admitted student events before any decision is made. Besides, D applied EA not ED precisely because she wanted options.
Wait until the end, IMHO. I always figure I could get hit by a bus before May 1, and my kid might want a less expensive or closer to home school. Plus, accepted student visits can reveal A LOT and cause some rethinking. Take your time. Encourage your kid to visit their top 3 schools for accepted days. Don’t worry about “taking someone’s spot”. Schools know everyone will not accept and make more offers than they have spaces. And they use their wait list process to fill the class if they miscalculate on that.
Many colleges put a postcard in their paper packet to respond. Emailing admissions will also do the trick.
Many schools have reply cards. Our HS has generic reply cards students can use if a college doesn’t supply one. You can turn down an acceptance by snail mail or email. I did see that with my son there were a couple of unexpected colleges in his final mix so I would not turn down an acceptance unless you are 100% percent sure you will not go there.
I would wait til necessary.
@intparent: exactly! That’s why our D is continuing with the application process for our local CSU not 4 miles from home even though she’s planning to attend a private LAC with good merit.
Thank you. I wasn’t too worried about it, but it’s just one of a long list of things that I do keep thinking we should be getting done.
My son waited until all acceptances were in, AND all financial aid/scholarships. The money part is a really good reason to wait. A couple schools accepted him with some merit awards included in the initial acceptance package. He did nothing for two months because he hadn’t heard yet from other schools. After about 6 weeks though, both of the first schools to accept followed up with additional scholarship offers, on top of the ones already offered. I’ve always wondered if he had accepted either of those schools right away, if they would still have offered additional money. We’ll never know. Son did end up choosing one of those schools, BTW.