We may not be looking in the right place, but both D and her friend (child of a college counselor) can’t figure out how to decline Beloit’s offer of acceptance. D, in particular, had a nice offer from them and feels bad about turning them down so is putting off contacting the admissions officer (because D feels like she needs to carefully compose an email to thank her and explain her choice.) Are there other schools that make it difficult to decline an acceptance? The process was pretty clear for D’s other schools.
Considering that Beloit has a 19% yield rate, the adcomms are probably used to students declining.
Just send a direct, but polite, note. No need to explain.
I’m not asking what to do. I’m asking if others have had this experience. Even our state directional had a clear way to decline an acceptance. Obviously D doesn’t HAVE TO explain. She FEELS like she should.
What experience?
Can you please describe how Beloit is not taking no for an answer?
She should just write a short email to the admissions officer. It’s not a big deal.
And if she doesn’t write ANYTHING, that’s OK, too.
All of D’s other schools had an online form, a place on their portal or at least a postcard to complete that let you say you weren’t going to attend. One of her schools only allowed you to say you are attending on the form. That seemed odd to me and I wondered if other schools did that too. I’m not sure why the above posters think I’m asking for advice about how to decline the offer. Obviously, they will assume the answer is no since D didn’t fill out the yes form.
I don’t think most of the schools my daughter applied had a place to say no. If they don’t get your deposit by May 1, they assume you’re not attending. As I said, no big deal.
do what kids do today…send a break up text…
sorry it is not you it’s me…we need to move on
@PNWedwonk, my daughter also carefully went through the process of submitting an official “no” to each of her schools. She felt it was especially important for the smaller schools with whom she’d had more personal contact. She was able to find the right place to decline on each website, but sometimes it was counter-intuitive, e.g., she had to click the link that said, “Confirm Your Enrollment Here!”, where she found the box to check no. (Of course, now that it’s after May 1st, those links probably no longer work.) A couple of sentences emailed to the Admissions Office would do the trick, and since it’s Beloit, your daughter would probably get a nice response in return.
You might feel bad about it, but at the end of the day you’re not going to do something that you believe is against your best interest. It’s best to just be direct and get it over with. It’s painful, but it’s also an important skill to learn, to be able to decline people’s offers.
I think posters aren’t giving you the answers you are actually looking for because your thread title doesn’t match your actual question. I mean, from what you describe, Beloit hasn’t refused to take no for an answer since your daughter hasn’t actually turned them down. You just want to know if many colleges make it as easy as checking a box to say no rather than writing a quick email to admissions. Sounds like it’s a mix.
Yes, some of my DS’s schools had no clear way to decline admission, it was a bit frustrating. But I thought that Beloit included an accept/decline form in the admission folder. We sent ours in as an acceptance, but I thought it also allowed the option to decline (and list school of choice). I’m probably remembering wrong.
One school had a yes/no postcard, and another allowed you to decline on their portal. For the rest he had to email the admissions counselor.
@rienrah, you are correct, Beloit’s admission folder does have a card included to either accept or decline admission. (My daughter accepted via the website, so the card is still in her folder. Paper? What’s that? 
)
You’re imparting too much into this process. If they have a 19% yield, the KNOW that 81% of offers will result in no matriculation. Whatever your daughter sends them will be noted by a file clerk who will enter her declination into a database and that’s the end of it. No one will wistfully read her kind words and miss her. It’s business.
When the waiter comes to you at the end of a meal and asks if you’d like dessert and/or coffee, if you don’t want it, you say “no thank you” get the check and leave. There’s no agonizing about the protocol.
Sorry @PNWedwonk, but I’m just envisioning admissions officers having many sleepless nights, running to the mailbox for the daily delivery, finally getting the precious envelope that they had worked so hard for, running inside the office, gathering all their colleagues around, and opening the envelope…only to read the first few lines “Thank you for accepting me, but after careful consideration…” Tears and kleenex abound.
Again, sorry OP, I couldn’t help myself.
My S didn’t really look for the “no” buttons in most cases, because he sent emails to all of the admissions counselors he’d interacted with – mostly small schools, but not all. (And yes, they were hard to write; he felt guilty!)
But he still does have one outstanding where he can’t seem to find the “no” button; it’s a big state school. We’ve also felt like, “What the heck, how do you just say no?” That’s the only school where he had no personal interaction or scholarship offer, so he just wants to do the simple click. Hmmm. It’s probably on that counter-intuitive “click here to confirm enrollment” tab. But they actually make you sign into your email or something, and he forgot the sign-in … argh. (For Beloit, though, he was clicking acceptance, so no problem there 
)
It is May3rd. Past the date to decline or accept. I would tell your daughter to let it go. Schools are businesses first.
@PNWedwonk, I just want to add that I think it’s very thoughtful of your daughter to want to compose a note to the Admissions Office. Despite some of the comments in this thread, I believe such a gesture is appreciated by the smaller schools. My daughter received a couple of really nice, personal e-mails from schools she declined (Lawrence, for example).
Yes, I think it’s common to feel this way if you really liked a school, especially a small one. Nothing weird here.
UConn did not include a postcard or any other way to decline them at the time my D applied. She finally called them. She had been accepted ED at another school and was obligated to notify her other schools that she was declining. OP, I too thought it was odd that they didn’t give us a way to say thanks but no thanks.