<p>Just a thought… Some schools require students to fill in some pre-application forms before starting proper applications. If after submitting those forms, you decide that you have to withdraw because of financial restrictions. Would that be unethical? Like cheating of some sort?</p>
<p>No, not at all. There were a couple schools I began to apply to that I never finished the application.</p>
<p>You can withdraw your application at any time before admissions decisions are made, be it after submitting the pre-app or after submitting the entire application. There is nothing unethical about it. In fact, formally withdrawing your application is the correct thing to do, so that admissions office workers don’t have to keep tracking whether the rest of your application came in, whether they should notify you about missing items, etc.</p>