College Discussion - View Single Post

soozievt · 11-10-2007, 10:27 PM

This is not how it works at other schools that I know. If you have an offer of admission at another school, your "slot" cannot be taken away from you before May 1. They only should accept the number they need to accept to yield a certain number of slots. In other words, most colleges don't take your slots before May 1 and let them fill up and then offer YOU (the already admitted student) a wait list! Rather the admitted students' offers are good through May 1 by which time you must commit and send a deposit and if the college or program does not fill the slots, the college (not YOU!) goes to a wait list. The accepted student never goes to a wait list at another school!

PPU should not be asking for a commitment prior to May 1. What PPU is doing is pressuring students to commit by deposit before they have heard from their other schools, many of which do not send out decisions until April 1 (a common admissions decision date!). While the deposit may be refundable, imagine if every school that accepted you, required a deposit to hold your spot PRIOR to you ever hearing from the majority of your colleges on April 1? Further, PPU is asking you to reserve a spot by deposit before you even learn if you got into their BFA program (just academic acceptance). Trust me, most colleges do NOT do this. None of my D's 8 BFA schools required deposits before May 1 and even if a college pressured for one, they can't take your spot away from you before the National Reply Date of May 1. I understand parents are apt to want to hold with a deposit at PPU given the talk that they received. Luckily, most schools don't do this or one could have to tie up an awful lot of money holding their acceptances until they had all their decisions in hand in spring! Unless one applies ED (which DOES involve a commitment), no student should have to commit to attend a university until May 1 because the whole idea behind RD (vs. ED) is to be able to weigh all of one's options/acceptances and financial aid offers. If one was ready to commit to ONE school, then that's what ED is for.

Also, since a student can't truly commit to a college before hearing from all their schools, this methodology that PPU is using encourages an unethical practice on the part of families to put deposits down on MORE THAN ONE school as they wait to hear decisions from other schools, when a student is only supposed to enroll and put in for a deposit and commitment at ONE school. By encouraging students to hold a spot via deposit and thus likely to do so at more than one school, PRIOR to May1, this unfairly holds spots that could be given to students who could attend because those commited slots are not 100% commited and students may back out before May 1. It is falsely filling up the class and keeping others out who WOULD matriculate if the slots were not temporarily filled by those who were "maybe" going to attend. This just is not good practice.

11-10-2007, 10:27 PM	#164
soozievt CC College Counselor/Musical Theater Counselor Join Date: Aug 2004 Threads: 138 Posts: 10,672	This is not how it works at other schools that I know. If you have an offer of admission at another school, your "slot" cannot be taken away from you before May 1. They only should accept the number they need to accept to yield a certain number of slots. In other words, most colleges don't take your slots before May 1 and let them fill up and then offer YOU (the already admitted student) a wait list! Rather the admitted students' offers are good through May 1 by which time you must commit and send a deposit and if the college or program does not fill the slots, the college (not YOU!) goes to a wait list. The accepted student never goes to a wait list at another school! PPU should not be asking for a commitment prior to May 1. What PPU is doing is pressuring students to commit by deposit before they have heard from their other schools, many of which do not send out decisions until April 1 (a common admissions decision date!). While the deposit may be refundable, imagine if every school that accepted you, required a deposit to hold your spot PRIOR to you ever hearing from the majority of your colleges on April 1? Further, PPU is asking you to reserve a spot by deposit before you even learn if you got into their BFA program (just academic acceptance). Trust me, most colleges do NOT do this. None of my D's 8 BFA schools required deposits before May 1 and even if a college pressured for one, they can't take your spot away from you before the National Reply Date of May 1. I understand parents are apt to want to hold with a deposit at PPU given the talk that they received. Luckily, most schools don't do this or one could have to tie up an awful lot of money holding their acceptances until they had all their decisions in hand in spring! Unless one applies ED (which DOES involve a commitment), no student should have to commit to attend a university until May 1 because the whole idea behind RD (vs. ED) is to be able to weigh all of one's options/acceptances and financial aid offers. If one was ready to commit to ONE school, then that's what ED is for. Also, since a student can't truly commit to a college before hearing from all their schools, this methodology that PPU is using encourages an unethical practice on the part of families to put deposits down on MORE THAN ONE school as they wait to hear decisions from other schools, when a student is only supposed to enroll and put in for a deposit and commitment at ONE school. By encouraging students to hold a spot via deposit and thus likely to do so at more than one school, PRIOR to May1, this unfairly holds spots that could be given to students who could attend because those commited slots are not 100% commited and students may back out before May 1. It is falsely filling up the class and keeping others out who WOULD matriculate if the slots were not temporarily filled by those who were "maybe" going to attend. This just is not good practice. Last edited by soozievt : 11-10-2007 at 10:33 PM.