Backing out of an Acceptance

[newsted43]

So.....I received a handful of acceptances which had acceptance deadlines of march 31. One of them being my second choice. Not wanting to be left without a school come fall, I accept the offer from school #2. Well, guess what? About 4 days after I accept school #2, I get an acceptance letter from school #1. More money, better program, better research and support. How can I politely back out of my acceptance with school #2 and will this in any way reflect badly upon me?

[anthropologygeek]

Did you sign anything? If not a nice email. If you did, you have to ask be granted a release by that school.

[newsted43]

As I am abroad, I have not signed anything official yet, but I have sent an email saying that I would accept the offer.

[newms]

If you are sure that you want to go to #1 instead, send #2 an email explaining that subsequent to their deadline you have been accepted to a program that is a better fit for you. Since you have not signed anything yet, I'm not sure if you have to ask to be released - maybe someone else can opine on that, but you should definitely email them before April 15. if #2 is a signatory of the Council of Graduate Schools' resolution and the offer you accepted was a funded offer, then your acceptance would be considered binding after April 15 and you would definitely need them to release you first (which they would probably do). Keep in mind that you should do this as politely as possible, since possible future colleagues at school #2 may be offended that you've changed our mind on deciding to go to #2.

[newsted43]

The schools are very comparable in reputation and rank. The issue is that one offered me 8k more than the other, which makes a huge difference.

[newms]

The schools are very comparable in reputation and rank. The issue is that one offered me 8k more than the other, which makes a huge difference.

You don't have to get into specifics when you let them know, you can simply say that the school #1 would be a better fit for you.

[amanda lauren]

I was in the EXACT same boat as you about a month ago - I had heard back from a few schools and had gotten acceptances, including being accepted to my 2nd choice, and the deadline for responding was 3 weeks after receiving the letter. Unfortunately I hadn't heard from my top choice school yet, and I didn't want to turn down my 2nd choice and end up with no grad school to go to. I accepted the offer from my second choice and about a week later I got accepted to my top choice (a higher-ranked school which I was much happier with, and which cost less than my second choice) and had to back out of my previous acceptance to the other school. I simply emailed both the graduate school and the admissions division for my specific program and told them that unfortunately, due to financial restrictions, I would not be able to enroll in their program for the fall semester. I left out that the financial part was linked to the fact that my top choice school was cheaper. All I had to do was send them a short, simple email and my acceptance was removed (or whatever they do when you withdraw an acceptance), and that was that! Hopefully it's this easy with other schools, but I just wanted to share my story since it was a very quick and painless process, and I had agonized over it for a few days before finally sending the email.