What is the best practice for international students in managing multiple acceptance offers when different schools seem to have different next steps?

[coolio]

I currently have 2 offers for an M.S. without financial aid (Fall 17) and I am waiting to hear the results from 3 more schools. My situation is

- School A gave me a 1-month deadline from the offer date to make a decision, and if I say yes then I have to pay a deposit. After that, I will need to send a copy of my passport along with the financial docs for them to issue my I-20.

- School B said I have been recommended for admission, and the next step is for me to mail in a copy of passports and financial docs for them. Then my I-20 will arrive with the official acceptance packet.  They did not mention anything about me notifying them with a yes/no response, or the deadline that I must abide by, or the need for a deposit.  I called and asked if there was a hard deadline for the financial docs and they said there really wasn't one either.

So school A and B are the safety schools for me.  I really hope to hear good news from the remaining 3 schools. I heard that some people would just say yes to multiple schools, get multiple I-20 documents, and make the final decision by declining the offers that they don't want later.  My problem is that I just don't want all these schools to have a copy of my passport and bank account info if it turns out that I will not attend there.  Plus my spouse will be going with me, so they will also have a copy of my spouse's passport too if I want an i-20 from them.  I am just not comfortable with the idea because I think it could be a privacy issue.  And then there is the issue of paying a non-refundable deposit to hold your place. Since the timeline for the decision will spread out over the next few months, I just hate the idea of paying a deposit on safety school as a fallback plan. Do all schools really follow that April 15th deadline? Does it apply to an admission without financial aid?  My plan right now is to wait a month to see if other school's results will come through.  If any of you have a good risk management process for dealing with multiple offers, please share.  Thanks.

Edited January 19, 2017 by coolio

[nugget]

Are you ok with giving this info out to only 2 schools? I'd take the next month to decide between these two schools. If you still don't hear back from the others, there is no need to hang on to both offers. Pick one out of these two options and move on.

If you pick the school requesting the deposit, pay it and keep waiting on the other 3 schools. Paying the deposit is well worth having the peace of mind that there is a spot waiting for you in the fall. If you pick the school that has no deadline, write an email to them indicating the date you will give your final answer and/or deposit (maybe April 16??). Make sure you request written confirmation that this date is acceptable to them and keep a copy of the emails for your records. 

When you hear back about the other 3 schools, hopefully all 3 will be within a similar time frame. If not, ask for an extension with each offer you get so you don't lose any more money than you have to. That way, you will only pay 2 deposits at the most and only 2 schools will get your passport information, rather than 5. 

As an international applicant, is there any chance one of the 3 schools will offer you funding? If not, I don't see why you can't start ranking all 5 schools right now and finalize your list within a month. So when offers come in, you will know right away which ones to decline.   

If funding is a possibilty, then you don't have much of a choice but to wait before ranking the others.

As for bank account info, if you don't go with your first school where you left a deposit, shut down your bank account (a quick and simple process), open up a new one and provide your new bank account info to the school you want to go to. Problem solved.

Unfortunately there is not much you can do about the passport information (unless you submit your spouse's application after you make your final decision, with the possibility that your spouse might join you a little later on). But you can limit exposure to your passport information to only 2 schools, providing that you hear back from the remaining 3 schools before the first one has a deadline. 

Edited January 19, 2017 by nugget