Considering Deposit at Two Universities Due to the Unknown - Anyone Else?

@SJ2727 Not many schools put out this information. The only one I have seen is Ohio State University. They admitted 7000 more students than they normally would. They are trying to make sure they can get as many students as possible because many will not show up or be able to afford it.

Yes, you can easily decide to stay at home and go to a local Community College for a year and then try to transfer to any school.

We are all in this together. We all applied to all these schools in September and October and many of the decisions were rendered back when Covid19 did not even exist. Now, we are faced with the possibility of virtual learning in the Fall semester. Obviously, we do not know if this is the case, but paying $20K per semester at an expensive OOS Flagship or a Private might not make economic sense for many. What happens in the Spring if this Virus is still lingering?

A lot of schools game the systems with the Deferred/Waitlist BS. Even the scholarships get dragged out into late April. This is a unique situation with a lot of unknowns. Some schools are being fair in extending the Deadlines, but many are not. Are schools willing to charge less for virtual learning vs what these kids are committing to? Are they really looking for the best interest of a student? Debatable! In this situation, everyone needs to do what makes sense to them.

The colleges don’t like it but double depositing is not unethical! It a prudent strategy, and you may also want to consider not declining any offers of admission until much later in the summer when hopefully things have settled down and financial implications are known. In 2019, the Justice Department required National Association for College Admission Counseling to make changes to their established “Code of ethics” which NACAC recently changed to a list of “best practices.” Now, colleges can continue to solicit students who have not responded to admission offers by May 1st (many colleges have moved decision day to June 1 given COVID 19 issues). Last year there were reports of students who had not responded by May 1 receiving emails with enhanced financial aid awards in May and June. There is noting to lose so absolutely make a double deposit by May 1 at your first choice schools and do not decline other offers of admission. This will give your family the options they need in these uncertain times. And if anyone wants to have a conversation about unethical behavior in admission departments, I am happy to engage.

I can’t like your comment enough. Many college admissions people patrol this site and like to scare applicants with posts about what “could” happen if they do not behave as admissions people would like. Not disclosing that you are a college employee seems rather unethical to me…

Speaking about ethical behavior and given posters understandable concerns about wait-listed students, lets explore some things the college admission offices can do to help wait listed students: college should commit to be fully transparent about their wait-list practices, every wait-list letter should state how many students are offered a spot of the wait-list, a link to regularly updated information about how many students have accepted a spot on the wait-list and five years of historical data about how many students were eventually admitted from the wait-list. Also, data should be included about any changes to how wait-listed students are reviewed, such as a “need blind” school becoming “need aware.” And finally every wait-list letter should include a potential financial aid award letter.

Consider the promise made by the student when signing the Common App and the potential consequence they agreed to:

https://www.commonapp.org/application-affirmations

If anyone needs wait-list information and it is not on the school’s CDS let me know…I have a few places where I can find old data which can still be helpful. But can we just talk for a moment about the schools and their employees who want to preach about student and families ethical behavior when they do not have the wait-list data on their CDS or do not release the information in the wait-list offers? Seriously, and then these school-paid commentators then want to lecture families about ethics???

But you said “many schools”? So that was an assumption? I am just trying to see if we are working with what we know is happening, or what we think/assume is happening. I’m personally not fond of blanket statements that can’t be backed up being used as a rationale. Arguments are stronger sticking to known facts rather than being padded with assumptions. In my opinion.

@J2727. I am not assuming anything although easy to do during these times. As I said, many schools are doing this. OSU was an example, South Carolina is another. Flagships who accept a decent amount of OOS students and internationals are doing this. It is early April and schools are doing whatever it takes to make sure they have enough students in the Fall. It is not a normal year and a lot of these 'borderline" kids will be getting in. Some schools will be scrambling and reaching out to students past the May deadline. For those OOS students out there, I can also see a scenario where a prospective student reaches out to a school in order to negotiate for a better Merit package. This is the year where students will have the upper hand.

Definitely goes both ways. Lots of students and their parents have less money for college now than they did 8 weeks ago too, and lots of uncertainty with regard to parents’ jobs.

Colleges have also taken big financial hits, with quite a few already announcing cost cutting measures and hiring freezes, so they won’t be able to grant every ‘professional judgment’ request that is going to be coming their way. Not only will potential freshman be making these requests, but so will many of the current freshman, sophs, and juniors…there is just not enough $ in FA budgets to make everyone whole.

Let’s take a major Flagship University where the In-State Tuition is $10K and the Out of State tuition is $30K. A prospective OOS student receives a $10K Merit Scholarship, will the school be better off offering another $5K in order to be able to keep the student? It is all about supply and demand.

All the schools have taken a major hit by reimbursing Dorm and Meals fees. This will continue throughout the summer. As of now, revenues for the Fall semester is in question with all the unknowns and the prospects of students not showing up to school. The same unknowns will quietly drive these dual deposits.

You are guaranteed to lose at least one deposit.

Also, if your household finances are that uncertain, then they may be uncertain for more than the next few months. Sending a kid to college is a four (or often more for non-top-end students) year financial commitment, so a financial stretch college is unlikely to be a good idea if your household finances are uncertain over the next four (or more) years.

A few years ago (2015?), UC Irvine had 800 more students accept admissions offers than expected. UCI didn’t have room to accommodate them. In late June (!) 500 of those students received letters rescinding their admissions offers.

Ethical? Or just a case of doing what had to be done under extraordinary circumstances? Somehow the University of California found a way to justify that despite what appeared to be an ironclad offer of admission.

It’s a 2-way street.

You said many, I asked for a source, you answered you knew of one, now you name two and again state “many”. This is not a way to reason an argument, but whatever.

I also don’t think students in general will have the upper hand with endowments falling and overall needs rising. The donut hole is going to get larger imo.

Agree on that one for sure.

What they actually did was strictly enforce the stated conditions of admission (submit final high school transcript by a certain date, with a sufficiently high senior year GPA and no D/F grades), rather than the probable leniency given in other years.

https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-uc-irvine-rescissions-20170728-story.html says that 499 were rescinded in 2017, 290 for transcript issues (probably missing or late final high school transcripts) and the rest (209) for senior year grades or GPA being too low.

In other years, they may have let slide a slightly late final high school transcript, or a 2.9 senior year GPA. But the conditions of admission did not guarantee such leniency. Just because a clearly stated rule was not enforced the last time does not mean that it will not be enforced the next time.

Ahh . . . the fine print. Somehow it always works out to the school’s advantage, doesn’t it?

And this is the sanitized version, the one released by the college’s PR Department for public consumption after consulting with the lawyers. What they’re basically saying is that they’re perfectly happy to be lax if it allows them to take your money but they will be sticklers if it’s going to cost them.

There’s another POV - that of the parents and prospective students - which isn’t represented in this article. I’ll reserve judgment until I hear their side of it.

This case was cited just as an example of how ethical issues can become complicated depending on the circumstances and of how compromises get made by both sides, not just by parents and students.

I think everyone has had a chance to comment on their views regarding double depositing which IS against the rules outlined by the colleges and the common app. CC does not condone rule breaking. When/If the colleges make a change to that due to the CoronaVirus you can start a new thread. This one is closing now.