If you are wait-listed by your preferred school(s) but have an acceptance to at least one school you are willing to attend, you can pay the deposit at the accepting school and accept places on the wait lists. We are from Massachusetts, and I see that the deposit at UMass Amherst is $500. It is the same for Rensselaer. Is $500 standard?
When do wait-listing colleges typically inform wait-listed applicants of their final decisions? For most colleges, for the fall semester, when is the actual tuition and room and board due? Forfeiting $500 is one thing but losing a 5-figure amount is another.
You not only can but you SHOULD put down a deposit at an acceptance school while on waitlists at others. The college will tell you when your payments are due. Dates can vary among colleges.
A very small handful of students may be accepted off certain waitlists in late April, but you’re far more likely to hear May into mid-summer. It is extremely rare, but not unheard of, for a student to get off the waitlist at the last minute; I’m talking after August move-in to their acceptance college, but before classes have started at waitlist college.
Many colleges will give you the courtesy of telling you their waitlist is closed. Often a list of closed lists is gathered here on CC. However, once you have committed to the acceptance college, your student really should get emotionally invested in attending that school. Buy the spiritwear. Wear it. Don’t wait for a letter telling you a waitlist is closed. Holding out hope for waitlist colleges slows the student down from moving on, and plants seeds of disappointment in their acceptance school. It is even more heartbreaking to get off the list, but you’re told the financial aid pool has dried up, and you can’t afford to send your student there without it.
Yes, you will loose your deposit at the acceptance school if your student gets off the waitlist and decides to attend elsewhere. $500 isn’t written into stone, but deposits are usually somewhere in that ballpark.
Yes, at some school combinations , you can lose a major deposit. I’ve known it to happen. Close friend of one of my kids, in fact. Put down big deposit on top of that “hold your place” amount and got a late wait list offer. Parents not atvall happy. I think then you have to think long and hard whether it’s worth it