Let’s say you get into one of your top 3 choices in EA. It helps to put in your housing deposit early to secure housing, which requires accepting the offer.
You still haven’t heard from the other two and it might take a while to know them (state flagships CA which don’t have EA).
Is it OK to accept the first offer and later withdraw (not worried about losing deposit) and accept another offer before May 1st? Is this common? Is it against any rules or etiquette?
Thanks!
Thank you for asking. I’m looking forward to hearing the answers. We have already had to do this b/c of housing. I think it’s the reason colleges stress it as a non-refundable deposit.
As long as you don’t double deposit it is generally considered OK if you need to secure housing. Just cancel before accepting somewhere else. Make sure that you read the fine print too as you may need to cancel admissions and housing separately. (And understand that you will lose the deposit).
Yes that is ok. It is also ok to have multiple housing deposits in (but not multiple enrollment deposits).
And shame on all the schools that do this, especially the ones that require an enrollment deposit to access housing.
One last thing…if you do have to reneg on housing and enrollment, do make sure to cancel them both…not all schools’ departments talk to each other, so withdrawing enrollment sometimes doesn’t automatically withdraw one from housing 
This. I remember a thread last year from someone who was fined a significant amount of money for not informing the housing people that her student would not be attending in the dall, even though she had informed admissions. Turns out they didn’t communicate so housing considered her a no show and fined her for it (in addition to keeping the deposit).