ASk for money back?

[panthers9876]

I think its only appropriate to ask for my application money back from one of the schools i sent money too. its past the april 15th deadline and still havn't heard anything back. i have already been accepted to a school so it doenst bother me about this one school. what would you guys say, i certainly think its appropriate since they sure didnt help me out.

[iamuberpro]

I am honestly curious what they would say

[LaraAnn85]

I think it is VERY inappropriate. I have several schools that I haven't heard a word from and I would never consider asking for my money back. I even had a school that informed me in February that they just realized they have no funding and can't take any new students and I didn't ask for my money back there. I knew what the costs were when I went into this process and I don't think it's fair to ask for a refund because of poor communication. Plus, this is just graduate school, I very well may be contacting these people in 5-6 years for a post-doc position and I do not want to burn any bridges. Yes it is a very expensive process and if you don't get in anywhere it sucks big time, but in my opinion it is quite poor form to ask for your ~$60 application fee back. I'm sure I over $1,500 on this whole process but a quick calculation puts my 5 year pay back at well over 100k in stipend alone, and 200k if we include out-of-state tuition and health insurance. Considering that, it would feel like wrong to me to ask for a few hundred bucks back....

[Minnesotan]

It depends. If they didn't even evaluate your application, then you paid a fee for a service they did not provide. On principle, it seems worthy of mention.

In practice, it would look petty, though.

[luvalicious]

I'm not even sure how one goes about asking for a refund of a non-refundable fee. I don't think it's remotely appropriate. I sympathize, but no.

[UndraftedFreeAgent]

It's tempting to ask for your money back, but I wouldn't do it. For one thing, the money was probably collected directly by the grad school, not by the department and pretty much all schools make it clear that the fee is nonrefundable. There are all kinds of reasons that they may not have responded yet. Maybe they're still considering your application. Maybe they didn't have your full application, even if they say they did. I had several schools (all using the Embark system) tell me that my file was complete and then claim not to have my transcripts. Clerical errors happen all the time, since this is paperwork involving ourselves, our undergrad registrar's office, their admissions dept., ETS, any other programs you've attended, your recommenders, and the department itself. That's a lot of potential error, not even mentioning postal or computer problems. Two years ago, I received a copy of someone else's GRE scores from ETS and let's just say that I'm very glad they didn't send those scores to schools. The point is, you shouldn't ask for your money back. You could however, call/email the department and let them know that you never received a decision. That way, since you didn't intend to join their program, you could still let them know that their system was defective, so they can improve for future years.

[4givn1]

There is one school I had that just didn't get back to me at all. For weeks and weeks phone calls and e-mails were ignored. I had multiple family members tell me that I should ask for my money back. I didn't bother--most likely they would have ignored that as well.

I do think there should be some mechanism in place to hold the admissions committee accountable and/or protect the applicant especially if it is serious and nothing is done about the situation.

Maybe someone should develop a RateMyAdcom site.

[Minnesotan]

Maybe someone should develop a RateMyAdcom site.

That would be as useless as Rate My Professor, where final grades correspond directly to professor rating. Anyone who got accepted would rate the school well; anyone rejected would rate them poorly.

[UndraftedFreeAgent]

That would be as useless as Rate My Professor, where final grades correspond directly to professor rating. Anyone who got accepted would rate the school well; anyone rejected would rate them poorly.

Quantification of subjective responses to a self-selected survey makes econometricians cry.

I agree that an adcom rating system would be pretty useless, but some level of transparency would be nice. To those of us on the outside, adcoms seem to be a black box mechanism that sucks up our money and time and spits out "yes" or "no" with no real explanation. It's especially puzzling when we get into our top choice schools, but are rejected from our safeties. I know it would be too much to ask, but more feedback than a form rejection letter would help allay concerns that our applications are not actually being read. For example: Penn State's Political Science rejection cited an "unusually high median GRE" score of 1290... mine was more than 100 more than that. Mind you that PSU was low on my list and I wasn't a good fit, but it was still puzzling. They could even send out several sets of form letters: one for low GPAs, one for low GREs, one for poor fit, one for "you're too awesome for us", etc., for virtually no additional cost. If they're actually reading our applications, it would involve one extra column in the Excel file, entering a number to represent the form letter that should be send, and then using the sort function.

In terms of standardizing the application process though, there has been a bit of "progress", in that a lot of schools are starting to use systems like Embark or ApplyYourself. The problem is that these systems still have a lot of bugs, and most of our undergrad schools haven't adapted to the 21st century methods of sending transcripts. I'm willing to bet than in another 10 years (ie when some of us will be on adcoms or writing letters of recommendation), the entire process will be electronic.

Hopefuly it won't go as far as the federal government has gone, where your file is first judged as qualified or unqualified by a computer without human involvement. Their system turned me down for a few interviews, because it only took me one year to complete my MA rather than two or three.

I'll go away now. I'm at work being bored.

[engguy]

Look, the system is so #$%@-up that it's a miracle it works at all. (I'm procrastinating from writing my final paper, by the way.)

I had the same issue with my safety school -- got in, finally, but it was the last school I heard from. My theory is that some schools approach admissions based on who they think will actually accept and thrive there, not necessarily on numbers or letters, etc. In other words, yes, they might suppose that you are likely to get better offers elsewhere and turn theirs down -- rather than waste an offer on you, they turn you down. Counter-intuitive, but possible.

As for the admissions fee angle, perhaps that's the next frontier for a CGS-like agreement to cover. It doesn't seem unreasonable to expect at least a yes or no for your money. But I agree that as things stand now, while you might be tempted to demand your money back, it's probably not gonna happen and it won't win you any friends.

Perhaps one final, carefully worded, polite but firm letter to the DGS of the school, cc-ing any names you can discern on the admissions committee, would at least open their eyes to the problem or even get some result.

[Minnesotan]

Quantification of subjective responses to a self-selected survey makes econometricians cry.

My girlfriend cries for three days straight, every month. That doesn't necessarily mean I'm doing anything wrong.

Then again, I'm still to blame, whether I did anything wrong or not.

Wait. What was the question?

[panthers9876]

I have an update, I actually did call the grad school for my money back. I just think its a little ridiculous to have had everything in the middle of December of 2007 and not heard anything. I didn't hear a yes, I didn't hear a no. Just that I got an email back in early Jan. that my file was complete. This particular school has already had there, graduate opp. weekend back in Late Feb/early March. It's a big ten school incase anyone is wondering, "cool it down". But on the more serious side, they said the lady to talk to won't be in till tommorrow after 2:00pm. So I will update everyone on the "how to get your money back" situation goes. I don't really see this as bad bussiness on my part, I personally see this is how they could give 2 cents about a guy at this particular program.

[ampersand]

In my opinion, you shouldn't have done it. I'm willing to bet that at the next conference the adcom members are at, they'll tell everyone about that one kid who had the nerve to ask for their application money back, and they'll probably be making jokes at your expense.

[Minnesotan]

Honestly, I think the Black List idea is absurd. Maybe, just maybe, a professor or two will remember your name if you were completely unprofessional and somehow made enemies during the application process, but the likelihood of anyone remembering that this even happened is very low. That multiple professors would hold grudges about it is even less likely.

Even withdrawing after accepting an offer of admission, though unethical, happens often enough that it likely does not seem much more than a aggravating non-standard activity to an admissions committee. Sure, it's bad form, and it can inconvenience quite a few people. Does that mean they'll all write your name down and remember 4-7 years later to give you hell when you're looking for a job? I doubt it.

While I wouldn't bother trying to get my money back, I honestly doubt the incident would ever become anything more than a humorous (and anonymous) anecdote to a program director, if he happens to remember it beyond this application season at all. In reality, the only consequences the OP will receive are more stress and a big run-around trying to deal with the bureaucrats who have long since cashed his check!

[whentostop]

I say go crazy. What is inappropriate is this process, and all the blind systematic nonsense to it. Yes, yes, hundreds of applicants, only so many slots, things have to be done how they are done. Fine. But you paid money to be judged, and have not been (as far as you know, of course). Refund.

I do not know why, but I become inspired with extremely small complaints based on principal (not to say your complaint is extremely small, but in a global sense, you know ).

[panthers9876]

Well Guys I did it. I called the Grad office lady up yesterday. At first she laughed when I said I wanted my money back. Her mood changed when she noticed I was dead serious. She looked up my file and saw when I had everything in. Seeing they got my application in on Dec 15th, I told her that was more then enough time 4.5 months to have had something done, she finally agreed and called up the department personally. She gave me some speel about me not contacting the department, I said thats why you had me do everything on your homepage so i could check my messages on whether I had got in or not. She couldnt disagree since i said I wanted to just send my app to the department instead of having to pay this dumb fee that I guess they didnt even use their own system to message with. I then spoke to someone from the department within a min, and she said they reviewed my application dec 21st and that I was waitlisted. She then proceeded to tell me there was much better applicants then me and that I shouldnt look forward to getting admitted. So I asked her how many people were on the waitlist, and I said is there a 100 people on it, she didnt know or just wouldnt say. Basically it ended there. AS far as wanting a job at this university I would never apply there, if there going to be this bad this early who knows what would happen later. It just seemed like they had there head stuck up there butt, and they couldn't believe I did this, but I did and Im happy I did it. I didn't get my money back but I sure feel a hell of alot better now about it. At least I tried.

[luvalicious]

I just find it incredible, I guess, that this is only the first time that you've called. But at least you've gotten your resolution. Doesn't sound like you wanted to go there much anyway.

[anese]

This may be an unpopular opinion--but I say, good for you!

I do not think I would have the courage to do it--but I do think on some level these institutions should be held accountable. We do pay for a service, after all.

[LaraAnn85]

I just find it incredible, I guess, that this is only the first time that you've called. But at least you've gotten your resolution. Doesn't sound like you wanted to go there much anyway.

I agree, I called or e-mailed all of my schools to make sure that my application was complete. Then I called or emailed to find out about interviews because I knew that a lot of them were on the same dates. They're just graduate secretaries, they're not scary/famous/mean, and you don't even have to say your name most of the time....