koareng

Under most circumstances, you should be able to withdraw from your last choice school. If you signed any paperwork, I would read through it and make sure it doesn’t prohibit withdrawing (I don’t think it would, but considering it’s a document you signed, I would double check). The electronic form I had to fill out when I accepted my school specifically said that I could withdraw if I decided to, but as long as your school doesn’t specifically say “you cannot rescind this decision” you should be okay to withdraw. The program might not be too pleased, and you may burn a few bridges, but in my personal opinion it's worth it to attend a school that is a better fit for you. I don’t know what field you’re in, so I can’t speak much about program quality at OSU vs. GVSU. However, I am finishing up my undergrad at GVSU currently and I quite like it here. I’ve worked with a lot of great faculty, and the class sizes are really small, especially the graduate level classes. The only potential downside is that overall GVSU doesn't have as much of a reputation as OSU (unless you decide to stay in West Michigan afterward, in which case about 50% of the college-educated people you interact with will have gotten their degree here haha).

I'll be joining the UMich Bioinformatics PhD program this Fall!