Paying multiple enrollment deposits for purposes of securing housing and early orientation registration
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Anonymous
| My daughter has been accepted to a couple schools that she is interested in. She is still waiting on decisions from two other schools, but those decisions will not be available until the end of March. Also, even the two schools that have admitted her will not have their financial aid package until March or April. As many people of learning, schools are already opening their housing and orientation portals. These schools will either not allow an admitted student to register for orientation or housing until the enrollment deposit is paid. Since we don't want to miss out on getting better housing or certain classes, we want to put down the non-refundable enrollment deposits for these two schools. Once we receive all the financial aid information and decisions from the two other schools in March/April, we would be in a position to commit to one school. Is it unethical to put down two enrollment deposit under these circumstances? Is there some kind of penalty for doing so (other than losing the enrollment deposit)? If housing and orientation didn't require it, we would not be putting down any deposits now. |
Anonymous
| Which schools are these? Usually the housing deposit is separate from the enrollment contract, so this seems a bit sketchy on their part |
Anonymous
I know South Carolina requires the enrollment deposit for housing. I'm sure that there are others as well (just don't remember exactly from the top of my head). Many schools will require an enrollment deposit for orientation - and you definitely don't want a late orientation date if you are trying to avoid getting shut out of certain classes or not getting a particular professor or getting stuck with a bad professor. |
Anonymous
| I don't know how else you could handle it. I'm guessing that it is more common than people admit, but people don't talk about it - especially this year with the Fafsa delays. |
Anonymous
I asked this question a few days ago and the moral police was out in full force reading me the riot act for even thinking about it! 
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Anonymous
| Seriously? It is pretty simple. Schools offer this to get you to commit early. That is the prize for committing. If you don’t want to commit that is fine. But paying to get to the front of the line is unethical, like it or not whether other people are doing or not. |
Anonymous
Honestly - it's kind of a legit issue. I don't think anyone is trying to be underhanded, but unfortunately the way the housing and enrollment deposits work, you almost need to put down multiple enrollments. It may be a lesser issue for schools without housing issues but definitely a concern for schools that have it - like South Carolina. Even if a school doesn't have that issue, no one wants to have their kid be stuck in the crappy dorm (though if it's an IVY, my kid would have no issue being in the crappiest dorm). And of course this year FAFSA delays is causing a whole other wrinkle. |
Anonymous
Oh, I agree! It's the student doing 'yield management' in reverse and is a tough pill to swallow for the colleges 
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Anonymous
Exactly 💯 |
Anonymous
| Honestly - I probably wouldn't do this for 10 schools or anything like that, but I think 2 is reasonable under the circumstances. It's not a simple matter of being indecisive - but more an issue about all the information not being available. Nobody wants to make a $100k-$300k decision without all the facts. |
Anonymous
Actually one of my kids had 2 schools who told them "our housing is first come, first serve" so we recommend you accept early if we are at all in your final list of schools, and as long as you inform us before May 1, we will gladly refund your deposit(s) (think there was a housing and an enrollment deposit at both). So my kid did just that at their top 2 choices and then as soon as they made a final decisions (early April), notified the "loosing school" and got their deposit back. IMO, it is not unethical to do this, because you are an admitted student already. You are not preventing another student from getting admitted to the school. And if you don't end up attending, everyone behind you in the "housing line" will move up one place. You could easily end up attending any of your schools---most are not doing this for 15+ schools, they are doing it for 2-3 final choices at most. |
Anonymous
Yup!!! Even if they don't have "housing issues", for any school that is not a lottery for freshman housing, nobody wants to wait until May 1 to end up in the crappiest dorms. So if you can afford the deposit (and possibly loosing it) go for it. |
Anonymous
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Another unethical grift from colleges!
Double check they’re going to refund if you cancel. |
Anonymous
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OP. You lucky dog! you got a different crowd in your responses.. Here's what I posted and see the responses.. Downright nasty morality policing!
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1185509.page#26805706 |
Anonymous
Oh wow! Very nasty! I think many of the responses from your post are from high strung parents who think that your kid is preventing their kid from getting a spot, but it doesn't work like that. If the colleges had more uniform and transparent deadlines for housing and financial aid information, this issue wouldn't even be a thing. So those parents true grievance should be with the schools. |