Wow…there is a LOT of stress layered on to the insanity of selecting a school I honestly hadn’t heard before. On the opposite end of the spectrum…D2 moves in on Wednesday, and I’ve technically not given them a dime. No deposit…fall tuition due today. Housing all set up…roommates communicting…nothing paid. Pretty easy…but I guess there’s always Wednesday to put a crimp in things…
@mathmom I completely agree, I have a lot of discomfort with the arms race that is the housing deposit process at so many colleges. Just puts undue pressure (financial and otherwise) on people to spend money for fear of their child ending up in an undesirable housing situation.
“^^^ I agree. Of the 6 schools my son applied to, 3 did it this way (housing randomly assigned after the may 1st decision day). The other 3 had priority dates for housing.”
I must have missed some posts in between. Too late to edit. To clarify, I was agreeing with @mathmom post 15 
I think the early housing deposit is unethical. It certainly violates the spirit of the agreement colleges make when they join NACAC, not to pressure kids to choose before May 1.
There IS recourse:
http://collegeexplorations.blogspot.com/2016/03/what-to-do-when-college-pressures-for.html
I did not have this experience with my kid’s colleges. Our deposits were credited towards tuition.
However, you might want to phone the bursar’s office at this college to ask what it would take for them to convert your “holding fee” into an actual deposit, i.e. a credit on your account. And to ask if they’ve cleared this practice of NOT crediting your account with the Attorney General in this state.
You might get a credit ASAP after one 2 minute phone call.
I am happy that DS’s college has not asked for money up-front. No housing or registration deposit. (There was an application fee.) No tuition or housing payments due until the first day of classes. (I did pay an honors housing deposit for a college that he was accepted to early, so lost that.)
I think first come, first served is fair. Especially for public unis and moreso for the gigundo unis where some dorms are close and some are a bus ride away and there are gigundo unis who don’t do the first come first server so it’s not all colleges that reward the decisive kids. There’s alot of procrastinator kids who wait until May 1st to make a decision. I think it’s fair to award the ones who deposit and commit early.
Again, as big businesses, colleges will do what they believe best serves their long term goals.
“There’s alot of procrastinator kids who wait until May 1st to make a decision”
Haha. I never viewed waiting until May 1st procrastinating. More like, weighing your options especially if you have multiple campus visits to make. At some places, you’ll be paying as much as $300K by the time you finish. Best to do your homework, kick some tires, ask some questions, and mull things over.
From the above…Not if you want a bed in the fall! It’s insanity.
Or get tripled. Those finaid letters come pretty quickly after acceptances, even for the March acceptances if the entire exercise is about finding the least expensive college that will accept you. May 1 is a “nicety” that is simply I “let us know now or never” deadline by many colleges.
@momofthreeboys - so you think its fair that the rich kids who can afford to lose multiple deposits while they make their decisions, will end up with the preferred or more affordable housing, and may shut out the needier kids who have to wait until all of their offers are in to decide which might be affordable.
After all the other advantages the rich kids have, this doesn’t really matter that much now, does it?
All the talk that these colleges and universities have about wanting diversity and welcoming folks of all backgrounds is after all, just talk.
“From the above…Not if you want a bed in the fall! It’s insanity.”
That’s why schools should change their policies as @mathmom stated in post #15.
Glad my kids’ choices didn’t have this expectation. Many of the top candidates admissions-wise hold out the longest. Seems silly to cut these kids out of decent housing or force their hand to eliminate your school because they get left with crappy housing as they wait for and weigh their options.
@doschicos - I agree, schools should figure out how to house everyone who accepts their offer of attendance by the deadline…no exceptions. If you have too much volatility in the yield to be sure, accept fewer kids, and tell those on the waitlist that they may not get housing if they accept.
Add that to the list of requirements you have for a college. From what I understand, there are plenty that handle housing that way. You presumably wouldn’t apply to those institutions which don’t. Or are you suggesting the feds pass a law requiring that all housing be allocated as you prefer?
Definitely a consumer awareness thing, not something that needs to be regulated. Gosh, no!
I just think it is a ridiculous stance on the part of the schools that employ it. Reminds me of infomercials. “Act now! This is a limited time offer!” Doesn’t seem like the best way of attracting the students. More focused on the short term than the long term.
No laws (as if you could get one done anyway). There are rankings for everything and schools seem to only revise policy for them…so someone should build a ranking (that’s sarcasm…just in case).
I assume the big schools with massive population movements always cause a problem for administrators. I appreciate the difficulty, I just don’t think making deposits or paying fees, sometimes before you have been accepted, is a reasonable way to run a school.
For us…4 year housing was a big deal. School is hard enough…It’s too much to also have to find a place to live.
I completely disagree that 1st come 1st served as fair at the schools where housing line is tied to acceptance. Lets take TAMU as an example…auto admits receive notification of acceptance well before those that are holistically reviewed. Regardless of whether the holistic review kids got their app submitted in August ahead of an auto admit that is hardly fair.
Nor was it fair that my son who didn’t visit U of Chicago till April (since he could only afford to fly out there once), was disadvantage because housing was first come first serve. He ended up going to Tufts where everyone is in the same housing lottery. Older son ended up with housing (but off the main campus at CMU), because he stewed until April 30th whether he really should turn down Harvard. Harvard BTW not only doesn’t assign housing till the summer, they also guarantee it for all four years. A big plus in my book, but not a big enough plus in the end for my kid.
Fair is typically in the eyes of the beholder. Rarely are there bright lines making something fair. And that is all before we get to the point of life not being fair.
Again, colleges are big businesses. Huge. For some reason, that really seems to bother a lot of people here or at least make them feel uncomfortable. They make decisions on how they operate (not only in terms of housing deposits but pretty much everything else) based on what they thing best serves their goals. You may agree with a given school’s policies; you may not. Doesn’t necessarily make you right and them wrong. Just different.
And different schools will have different policies because they have different goals, have different applicant pools, etc. If you don’t like how a given school handles deposits, don’t apply there (just like if you don’t like any of any of a large number of other policies, characteristics, etc. of any given school). You may disagree with it or it may not work for you. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work for the institution itself. To each his/her own. YMMV.
@mathmom Plus 2 on the humble brag. 