How to decline an offer?

[getmeout]

Does anyone have any suggestions for how to graciously decline an offer of admission? Phone/email? Give reasons or not? Etc.

Also, I've been admitted at my top choice and am on the waitlist at another school. Should I contact them to remove myself from their waitlist?

Thanks for the advice...

[new mexico]

Edit.

Just thank the school for the offer of admission, but that you've decided to attend a different school.

Edited March 7, 2011 by new mexico

[BrandNewName]

Does anyone have any suggestions for how to graciously decline an offer of admission? Phone/email? Give reasons or not? Etc.

Also, I've been admitted at my top choice and am on the waitlist at another school. Should I contact them to remove myself from their waitlist?

Thanks for the advice...

I am waiting until I visit every program before I remove myself from the waitlist or decline any offers. I feel particularly attached to one program that I do not think I will attend and when I make my decision I intend to write a rather personal email outlining my decision and thanking them wholeheartedly. These are, after all, people who you will see again. I don't see anything wrong with taking a more personalized approach to declining if it's genuine in nature.

[Tahuds]

I am waiting until I visit every program before I remove myself from the waitlist or decline any offers. I feel particularly attached to one program that I do not think I will attend and when I make my decision I intend to write a rather personal email outlining my decision and thanking them wholeheartedly. These are, after all, people who you will see again. I don't see anything wrong with taking a more personalized approach to declining if it's genuine in nature.

It strikes me as a bit rude to wait until you visit every program if you get into your first choice with a financial aid package that makes sense. Why cause someone on the wait-list that much more stress if you know where you're going? If you don't have a strong opinion then I guess every school is your first choice.

[newms]

It strikes me as a bit rude to wait until you visit every program if you get into your first choice with a financial aid package that makes sense. Why cause someone on the wait-list that much more stress if you know where you're going? If you don't have a strong opinion then I guess every school is your first choice.

I'm not in your field, so it may be different in your field, but I don't think it's rude at all to wait til you've visited all the schools you're going to visit before making a decision. This decision affects the next 4-6 years (for a PhD) of your life and you want to make sure that you make the right decision and find the school that's the best fit for you. Just because a school may look like your best option on paper, doesn't mean that it will be a better fit. There are many cases where people have turned down an offer from a higher ranked school in order to go to a school that isn't ranked as high because the lower ranked school was a better fit. Visiting a school and speaking with profs and current students is a really good way of gauging how well you'd fit at a school, so I don't think it's rude at all to consider all offers. It's good to decline offers as soon as you know that you will be going elsewhere and it's good if you've made your decision sometime before April 15 so that waitlisted applicants can get an offer, but you shouldn't rush that decision. That's just my $0.02.

[tothemoon]

It strikes me as a bit rude to wait until you visit every program if you get into your first choice with a financial aid package that makes sense. Why cause someone on the wait-list that much more stress if you know where you're going? If you don't have a strong opinion then I guess every school is your first choice.

I don't mean to be incendiary, but if you've been admitted into a program, regardless of it's your first choice or your twelfth choice, you deserve to take all the time you need to make your decision. This is a big step, and you want to be as certain as possible about the school you choose.

[BrandNewName]

It strikes me as a bit rude to wait until you visit every program if you get into your first choice with a financial aid package that makes sense. Why cause someone on the wait-list that much more stress if you know where you're going? If you don't have a strong opinion then I guess every school is your first choice.

I know what you're saying and it would be rude for me to hold those spots if I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was going to attend a certain program. The thing is it wasn't until I visited one program (Duke) that it became the top of my top choices. Then, luckily enough, I was accepted to my other top of top choices (Yale). The thing that became clear to me was that, had I not visited Duke, I would have never known how great the program and people were. I've made too many mistakes when it comes to commitment -- we won't even go there -- to blindly accept an offer that seems perfect before checking it out. It's not a malicious undertaking on my part, I understand the stress involved in this process very well and I intend to notify every program as soon as I confirm what I think to be true.