<p>Long story short: </p>
<p>I was accepted to SFSU. I’m currently waiting to hear back from UCLA and UCI, both of which won’t tell me anything until the very end of April. </p>
<p>I’ve heard horror stories about how students will be accepted to a school and will wait until the last few days before the deadline (May 1st, in this case) to officially accept admission only to hear that the school doesn’t have any more room for them and they can’t attend the university anymore. </p>
<p>I’m concerned that if I wait to hear from UCLA and UCI and don’t get in, I also won’t get into SFSU because they may run out of room! </p>
<p>So, do I accept admission to SFSU and cancel if I end up getting accepted to one of the UC’s? Or do I wait it out and take the risk of not being able to go ANYWHERE?</p>
<p>I’d wait until you hear from the other two.</p>
<p>I have never heard of students who accepted an offer of admission by the national reply date only to be told that the university couldn’t let them enroll because of lack of space. Are you certain that you have those stories correct? What does happen at many public universities is that students who wait until the last minute can’t get into a residence hall because the spaces are taken. Often they do get a room by the fall, but they have nerve-wracking summers.</p>
<p>If you are afraid you won’t get a room otherwise, you can accept SFSU now, pay your housing deposit to guarantee your space in the residences, and then cancel your registration later if you get in somewhere else. However you may lose any deposits that you have paid. So be sure to ask what the policy is.</p>
<p>Check to see whether their deposit is refundable.</p>
<p>If it’s refundable, there’s not much point in <em>not</em> paying it.</p>
<p>Yeah, those horror stories are just stories.</p>
<p>The acceptance notification you got is a binding agreement. If they accept you, they guarantee you a spot. Period. If they were worried about running out of seats they would have thrown you on the waitlist.</p>
<p>Colleges do as a rule tend to over-accept to compensate for yield rates. ie. If they only have enough room to take 1000 freshman, and in the past 66% of accepted students decided to go to that school, they would probably send out about 1500 acceptances so that, if historical trends stay true, 1000/1500 students will enroll and everything will be perfect. Happily ever after. Of course, it never turns out perfectly. Colleges tend to actually accept a bit more cautiously than that example (like 1250 acceptances instead of 1500) and they try to fill the empty seats by pulling from the waitlist. Then there are years every so often that a college will be “overbooked” and will get more commitments than they are able to seat. Tough. They just deal with it. Making class sizes bigger, hiring new professors, whatever it takes, as far as I know, they can’t back out once they accept you.</p>
<p>So all of that means that your seat is safe. Don’t worry and try to wait for your decisions with some sense of peace.</p>
<p>P.S. While they may not be able to kick you out for committing to them too late (before May 1st!!), there can indeed be complications as far as housing, parking, etc. If you’re really concerned you may want to look into that but it should all work out in the end. I’m not committing to any school until May 1st to be honest. So you’ll be fine.</p>
<p>Hooray, thanks everyone for calming my nerves. </p>
<p>I’m just so paranoid because I literally won’t find out from UCLA/UCI until a few days before the deadline for SFSU. But I guess if it’s considered a binding agreement, I have nothing to worry about as long as I say yes before the big day…</p>
<p>I heard that UCLA decision could come out as early as this weekend … stay tuned …</p>
<p>I’m a transfer student, so I apparently have to wait longer for their decision. :/</p>