after being accepted RD and placing a deposit, a student defers admission for a gap year. Subsequently, in the Spring of the “gap” year, student indicates that they won’t be going to that college after all. Beyond losing the deposit, is any jeopardy attached? no financial aid is involved, if that matters. any experience 1st hand or in similar situation you are aware of?
Sometimes when students take a gap year, the college asks the student to commit to not applying to other colleges. The student needs to keep that commitment, or let the gap year school know as soon as soon as they decide to apply to other schools. Likely the gap school will then withdraw their offer. I suppose the student can still re-apply to the gap school again if they choose, although I assume the gap school would have yield concerns in that situation and may not admit the student again.
If the student isn’t going to apply to other schools (or maybe decides to attend community college), then there shouldn’t be any negative consequences if they just decide not to attend the school the next fall.
Think this through carefully, other than losing deposits, what possible negative consequences could there be if a student decides to not attend College A after taking a gap year? How about NONE.
This is roughly equivalent to a kid deciding not to enroll at all halfway through the summer before classes were to begin, and plenty of students do that.
Often when a kid commits to a college and takes a gap year, his/her high school is in effect made a party to the agreement. Until the student lets college A know (s)he will not be attending after all, the high school will not send out a transcript to other colleges, making it impossible for the student to apply to other colleges. (Most colleges will not accept transcripts directly from the student.)
One year, 3 kids from my offspring’s alma mater enrolled in the same university. Upon arrival, in late August, they learned that the high school had failed to submit their final transcripts. University initially would not allow them to enroll. When they realized that all 3 of them had the same problem, the university realized it was probably an error made by the high school, which was closed. The U made all 3 sign a statement saying they acknowledged that their enrollment was conditional on the high school providing a final transcript within 30 days. However, due to the snafu, the 3 were late registering for classes and were shut out of some of the classes they wanted to take.
Judging from your response on another thread…it sounds like you deferred your enrollment…but have now applied to and either have been accepted or hope to be accepted to a different college.
Is that correct…because you did ask how your commitment to your gap year could be enforced?
Regardless…the right thing to do is to immediately notify that school where you deferred that you will not be attending…like today. Don’t wait one more minute. This school is holding a spot for you in their incoming class…and you have decided not to enroll. Release that spot immediately so that it can go to a student who wants to attend.