| Am I understanding this right about May 1 candidate reply date?
I have seen on several college sites that May 1 is the day to let them know if you are coming. Now I can see that if you have applied to a few places and are pondering it. However, if you were to receive scholarship offers at some of them, does that move the reply date up in some cases? Say we were doing this scenario:
Three colleges picked:
A) A safety at state university where there would be some scholarship but not full ride
B) A good match where you have a chance to compete for a full ride or even full tuition scholarship (one of only about 15-20, though, but you know your stats are very competitive and not such a long shot)
C) A reach that is exclusive and a long shot but you think "what if"
Your acceptance comes from the safety along with scholarship to pay, let's say, half. For B, you have a scholarship day where you have to go interview, etc., and it's not til February. For C, interviews around the same time if you even made it that far on the list, but decision aren't out until April
So now that you are stuck in the middle of confusion, do you accept the known thing? Wait and try for B or C? And if you are waiting a long time after getting the acceptance and scholarship offer from A, is it bad to leave them hanging, do these offers "expire" if not replied to? I'd be tempted to hold out and hope for B and be ready to take that and not worry so much about the reach, but then kick myself if the reach came through later and had accepted B.
I'm sure this comes up a lot...how do people navigate through this? Before coming to CC I didn't even know people applied to multiple places. Doesn't seem like many kids at my son's school do that. They pretty much pick a place and go there! | 
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