My son was excited to attend Tulane and submitted a housing/enrollment deposit some months ago. But, he was pretty crestfallen not to receive the DHS or PTA, for which he felt he was a strong candidate. Obviously, Tulane received many outstanding applications, will garner many wonderful students from those selections, and it would never be reasonable to expect to get such an award.
But, it did kinda sour him a little, and his admission and subsequent visit to MIT has swayed him considerably.
Having submitted the housing/enrollment deposit, if he chooses to attend MIT, how does he inform the school, preferably in a way that get the deposit back? Thanks for your help.
@nmfixed
If he does it before May 1 it is refundable, I believe in full. After that it is non-refundable. He should start with admissions, and they can instruct him from there.
I hope he stays with Tulane anyway. Of course he should go where he is most confident he will be happy, but not winning a DHS or PTA shouldn’t be the deciding factor, unless financially it was necessary. I am sure he was a strong candidate indeed, since he got into MIT. but there are probably close to 1,000 candidates for those awards that have similarly strong resumes, and only 125 awards to give.
So if he really liked everything else about Tulane, I hope he can get that feeling back. There must have been reasons beyond the full tuition awards that drew him to Tulane in the first place. If, though, he really feels like the techie atmosphere of MIT (and I definitely do not mean that in a negative way) is better for him, then I can only wish him the best of luck. And should that be the case, he should get on the phone Monday with his admissions person and see what the steps are for getting the money refunded.