<p>I have heard back from all of the universities I have applied to, except for one: my top university that I want to go to. They said that my application will probably not be processed until after May 1st; the problem is that all the other universities I've applied to require an admission decision by May 1st.</p>
<p>I don't want to get into a situation where I decide to not accept admission at any of the other universities, and wait for my top university's decision, only to find out that they declined my application and I end up with nowhere to go to college.</p>
<p>Because of this, I am thinking about accepting one of the other university's admission decisions, and then going back on my decision if it my top university ends up deciding to offer me admission. Before I do this, I just want to find out what the ramifications of doing that would be; obviously I would probably lose the deposit, but that is not too big of a issue. I am mostly concerned about other negative effects, such as legal ramifications or me being put on some sort of college blacklist, or even having my top university withdraw their offer of admission. </p>
<p>I should also clarify: all my applications were Regular Decision, not Early Decision.</p>
<p>Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!</p>
<p>As far as I know there are no legal ramifications or negative effects and I know several seniors last year who committed to a college after getting of the waitlist in June (they lost the deposit of course but are at their new colleges and happy).</p>
<p>In other words this is not common but definitely not unheard of… Happens every year</p>
<p>You accept at the best choice possible. If and when your other school accepts you, then you tell the first one that you must decline. You will lose any monetary deposit but it happens all the time. No penalty. Nothing unethical.</p>
<p>The only unethical thing would be to say YES to two colleges simultaneously and then drop one late in the summer.</p>
<p>As far as acceptance goes, there obviously is no official “change your mind” button on a university’s website. So how exactly would you go about reneging on your acceptance? I understand that the process will probably be different depending on the university, but I would appreciate it if anyone could give me a general idea of what to do—do I just talk to my admissions counselor? I don’t want to get in contact with the wrong person, ask them to drop my acceptance and then have them not do it (without my knowledge), and then end up having deposits at two different universities at the same time.</p>
<p>What happens if you change your mind? You lose your deposit at the first school. That’s it.</p>
<p>People get in off of wait-lists all the time and rescind their acceptances. As a prior poster said – nothing wrong or unethical about this.</p>
<p>If you get in at your first choice – the first thing to do is accept them. Then, I’d probably place a call to the admissions office at your second choice school, and tell them you were admitted at another school, and will not be attending. Ask them what to do. They’ll have handled this situation before and will have a procedure.</p>
<p>The procedure is to send an email to the admissions office withdrawing your acceptance. You don’t have to send it to a specific admissions officer - just the admissions office. Most college web sites have the email address. If you have a personal relationship with the admissions officer, it would be nice to let them know as well, with an email to them personally, thanking them for the opportunity and their time - but this is not essential.</p>
<p>Faxing is also easy. Just a note of “college a came thru so I won’t be attending college b.”</p>
<p>Do it as soon as you know so other like you who are waiting can hear.</p>
<p>So decide on one school now, do everything you are supposed, etc then if your other school comes through, tell the, yes, say no to first asap and enjoy collge</p>