After all your hard work during high school, and all the time you’ve spend on your college applications, many of you now have multiple admissions offers. Congratulations! That’s the fun part. Now, the challenge is choosing one!
May 1st is the national reply date for all admitted students. You express your commitment to a college by sending a non-refundable enrollment deposit check. If you are having difficulty choosing between colleges, you may be tempted to double deposit (or send in deposits to more than one college) in order to extend your period of decision-making. Don’t!
Double depositing violates the policies of NACAC (National Association of College Admission Counseling), the membership organization for accredited colleges. A college that discovers a double depositor can withdraw its offer of admissions.
Why is this practice wrong? For one, it prevents colleges from accurately estimating how many students will truly attend. As a result, they cannot effectively use their wait lists to fill spaces. If colleges overestimate the numbers of students enrolling, those students who might have been admitted from wait lists lose spaces that rightfully belong to them.
Not to mention that there may be additional personal consequences as well. Not only may you impact your own options, but those of your siblings as well. If one of your siblings applies to the college at which you double-deposited, your action may negatively influence their admissions decision. In addition, if you apply to graduate school at the college at which you double-deposited, your own future admissions decision may be affected.
Sooner or later, you will need to decide among the colleges you have been accepted to; it isn’t worth it to jeopardize your admissions decisions simply to buy yourself extra time. For guidance, check back shortly for our upcoming blog “How to Decide Among College Acceptances.”