Accept and later reject?

[iced^T]

I was waitlisted for Georgia Tech for their Masters in Industrial Design program and accepted last week. They have asked me to make a decision by this weekend, but I am in no state to decide right now, as I have not got any scholarship results. I cannot attend if I do not get a scholarship. What if I send in an acceptance letter right now, and then later reject it because of financial difficulties? I do have a vaild reason. Please give me some ideas on this. Has anyone faced similar situations before?? Thanks everyone for their replies like always.

[angusBF]

Well, I haven't been in a similar situation and I don't know of anyone else who has. But I do think that not having funding is quite a valid reason and I think they would understand that. But really, what would they do if you ultimately rejected the offer? I understand they probably won't be thrilled, but I don't think you would really be causing such an inconvenience for them considering the scenario if you don't actually get any funding. If you did have funding and then rejected, they will have to decide whom to allocate the new funding to, I suspect. But otherwise....I don't think I would be too concerned with making them a little annoyed and just do whatever would be best for you in this case. But then again, this is just my opinion :-).

[appliqed]

Could you ask for an extension given your situation?

Somewhat different from your situation but I was told by one school official to put the deposit while waiting for the other school's decision (the one I was waitlisted).

[Rach8340]

Did your admit tie you to making a deposit with accepting the offer? As long as you don't have to make a non-refundable deposit, you could accept and then wait it out for the prospect of scholarship money. Or, though this is unpleasant, if you are stuck with a non-refundable deposit, you can guarantee yourself a place in the program on the gamble that you might lose the deposit if you can't do your program. As long as you have a place in the program, you can choose to leave at any time. I think the school would understand, your reasons are very valid.

[iced^T]

good thing is I dont have to pay any deposit on accepting the offer. I think I am just going to accept it, wait for the scholarship results and then reject ... I dont care much if they get annoyed with me since they are not giving me any funding unless they sue me or black list me or something ..

[angusBF]

Well I know this is a little off topic since we were trying to discuss the problem iced^T is facing...but seems like a good opportunity for me to ask you about the following situation I *could* end up in.

I have been accepted to a Masters program with full funding at one university and wait-listed to a PhD program at another. My absolute highest preference is the PhD program and I seriously want to attend, but unfortunately I am *still* on the wait list after about 2.5 months. The admissions folks there claim that decisions will be made "mid-May," which is in about 2-3 weeks I suppose, but my deadline to accept at my Masters school is pretty much now. No, I can't ask for an extension there as I already did that, this *is* the end of my extension. I thought about it and decided that I will accept the Masters offer as there is no guarantee that my PhD school will come through and I can't take that chance. And if the PhD program doesn't end up accepting me, then I would forget about all this speculation all together. Also, I do honestly like my Masters program though if I got accepted into my dream PhD school now off the wait-list I would hate myself if I declined it as there is also no guarantee that I would ever get accepted again. So..............I decided that I will ditch the Masters people if my PhD program comes through. Any thoughts on that? Yes, I know they won't be incredibly happy, but at the same time you can't always make everyone happy in life and in this case, the primary person that I am concerned about is myself. Yes, that's a little selfish, but would you take a bargain that effects the rest of your life? I will be choosing to give up two years of my life basically if I decide to stay with my Masters if my PhD offer comes through. That's a pretty long time considering that I will be giving up two years at the end of my career. And I don't think it will be such a huge inconvenience for them anyway because my Masters school has a rolling admissions process with a final deadline of June 1st 2010. So I am 100% certain that they will still keep people on the their wait-list past mid-May. So were I to later reject, they would certainly fill my stop.

Please comment, thank you.