My D24 declined the 2 schools that deferred her. I’m not sure how she did it, but with 11 acceptances already (a couple are a $ reach) and the others are a great fit $ wise and academically, she decided if they didn’t want her, she no longer wants them. She wants to wait and see the other 5 to come in. If her dream school ED2 comes in with an acceptance, she will of course withdraw from all. So it’s a long wait till end of Feb. I did ask her to start weening out her list but…
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This is a common myth.
Acceptance offers take yield into account. Declining an offer early does not open up a seat for another student, because the college has already factored in how many will decline. And they don’t start taking anyone off the waitlist until after May 1 (or close to that if they are under yielding).
I get that declining early feels like the right thing to do. But it won’t actually help anyone.
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Interesting! Makes sense I just hadn’t processed it that way. Okay well that’s good now I feel less guilty about hanging on to a few for safety sake.
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Similar here. D24 applied to 7, no reaches. 4 were rolling admit schools, the rest were submitted as EA applications. Got accepted to all 7, but kid won’t be making a decision until we get financial aid packages + find out results of music performance scholarships she applied to at the 3 LACs. So it’s going to be awhile (late March, I think) before a decision is made in our house…this is driving my DH crazy (the having to wait to make a decision). 
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I hadn’t quite realized how deeply engrained politeness is in me until C24 started getting responses from schools. It feels so weird just not to say anything to the schools, not even a “thank you for admitting me” until you either decline or accept. Intellectually, I know that nobody in any admissions office is sitting there thinking “Gee, I sure hope C24 decides to come here! Can’t wait to hear from them!” But it just seems so cold not to reply.
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While declining doesn’t “open up a space” on a 1 for 1 basis, because as you mention, schools calculate yield into their offers, the “how-many-to-accept” model certainly recalculates more than just once at the moment first round of acceptances go out.
So 1 person declining doesn’t open up 1 spot.
BUT – 10 or 50 or 100 people declining likely does impact the school’s next move, whether that is an upcoming round of decisions or deferral treatment or waitlist treatment. Varying degrees of impact of course depending on size of school, their normal yield, etc…the more competitive and higher the yield, the bigger the impact of course. (Huge state school with a 10% yield, well the impact probably is so small that we could consider it truly none.)
Bottom line: yes we should all take the time we need – no worrying about “holding a spot” from someone else. But also: decline and move on for everyone’s’ sake once you know it’s really a no on your end. If we all just held onto all of our spots until April 30th, May 1st would be total mayhem. (even more than it is.).
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Actually, many schools do flag highly desirable students and reach out to them encouraging them to commit if they haven’t heard from them by April. They may even extend the May 1 date, have a Dean send an email and offer to chat, etc.
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Not true if your kid got a merit offer that can be passed to another student.
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We declined one right away as it was a full ride scholarship and we knew we were not going and wanted someone else to have the opportunity to get the the much needed merit award.
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That’s not how they make merit offers. They take yield into account as I mentioned above.
For example, let’s say they have money to provide 1000 scholarships of $20,000 each. Now let’s say they expect the yield for students with merit to be 25% (i.e. only 1 out of 4 will enroll).
They will offer merit scholarships to 4,000 students, knowing 3,000 will decline. It doesn’t matter if those students decline on Jan 15th or April 30th. It’s all the same to them.
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Most of the merit offers (unless you are talking limited competitive merit) aren’t “re-offered” to another student. Each student gets the merit offer they are getting with their acceptance and schools plot out how much merit they want to offer with how many offers they are making.
They know how their merit yields just as well as they know how many offers they need to make to yield the incoming class.
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You are talking about an endowed scholarship.
This happened to my daughter - she was an alternate and received it after a student declined.
In general terms, declining admission prior to May 1 does little to bring anyone else in nor will it alter the moneys being offered in merit. The reason is, they’re already expecting x % are going to decline - at many schools that percent is 80%+ (that will decline).
The reason to decline before May 1 is to cement the decision in your (the student’s) mind vs. maybe flipping back b4 May 1.
But others leave it all out there - just in case - til May 1 (and some don’t even decline at all).
This is simply not always true, particularly at smaller schools. I know because my son is holding one and they have other scholarship days to come. His will go back into the pool.
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I volunteer with an organization that helps underprivileged students with college admissions and we interact closely with admissions offices. But debating (and going back and forth on the same point) is disallowed on these forums so we can simply agree to disagree and move on.
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This is not to debate anything—it is just to add that a couple of merit-offering schools that my daughter has been accepted by are known to “top up” offers around late Feb or March. They can do this because they have a clearer picture of who is not coming by then.
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Yes, the “at least X” offer, and then the full picture later. I have seen a bunch of those.
My kiddo’s offer that I mentioned earlier comes with an expiration date, well before May 1st. Our plan is to respond well before that expiration date.
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There are also scholarships for small catholic colleges that get thrown back into the pool if a student declines. A friend of my D’s was apparently an alternate and got a nice surprise late in the cycle with a full ride.
I do agree though that most of the times, schools are very aware of their yield numbers when giving out their merit awards and they are expecting students to wait until the deadline before declining.
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Those are likely endowed…
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Okay another question for this knowledgeable and helpful group…
Does it mean anything when they ask you to move a RD app to ED2? Or is this generically sent to everyone? We have three schools (two targets, one reach) that have emailed her/us and the reach one also texted me and my husband today. (All three have had her app since October)
ETA schools are American, Franklin and Marshall, and Lehigh in case anyone has more specific insight
That seems to be common for schools that offer ED2 as it helps schools better predict their yield since it’s binding.
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